Tractor Guidance System for Farm Work Using DGPS and Gyroscope

Keiichi Inoue^*, Kazuhiro Nii^, and Yun Zhang^

^*National Agriculture Research Center for Hokkaido Region
1 Hitsujigaoka, Toyohira-ku, Sapporo 062-0045, Japan

^**Geosurf Corporation
2-12-7 Minamiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0047, Japan

Received:

October 1, 2008

Accepted:

April 19, 2009

Published:

June 20, 2009

Keywords:

GPS, guidance, navigation, tractor, Kalman filter

Abstract

A tractor guidance system using a differntial GPS (DGPS) is developed to support the driving of a tractor to track the target lines in the field for plowing, sowing, fertilizing, pesticide spraying, harvesting, manuring, grass teddering etc. The system, graphically designed, generate parallel paths automatically according to the work width and displayed more accurate and stable real-time position and direction through a developed filtering method based on Extended Kalman Filter using 3 axis gyroscope with differential GPS, and predicting position and direction after few seconds later considering the delay of the driving operation. The system enables high precise straight and parallel work in the wide field even for a beginner without setting marks. After practiced, the gap from the target line was less than ±20 cm.

Cite this article as:

K. Inoue, K. Nii, and Y. Zhang, “Tractor Guidance System for Farm Work Using DGPS and Gyroscope,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.21 No.3, pp. 394-402, 2009.

Data files:

References

[1] K. Inoue, N. Murakami, K. Ootsuka, M. Sugimoto, and B. Rey, “Sensor fusion Techniques for Automatic Guidance by the method of using Kalman filter using DGPS and Gyrocompass(Part1),” Japanese Society of Agricultural Engineering, Vol.61, No.4, pp. 103-113, 1999.
[2] K. Inoue, N. Murakami, and S. Miyaura, “Guidance System for Farm Work using GPS and Adaptive Control Method for Autonomous Tractor,” Europe Navigation Conf. GNSS2003(CDROM), 2003.
[3] K. Toru, “Applied Kalman Filtering,” (New Edition) Asakura publisher, Tokyo, Japan, March 2005.
[4] Y. Yun, K. Inoue, K. Nii, and M. Uchiyama, “Integrating DGPS and 3D Gyro sensor in Tractor Guidance System for Precision Farming,” ION GPS 2007, 2007.
[5] Y. Matsuo and Y. Hamada, “Navigation System for precision farming in the field,” 62th annual meeting of Japanese Society of Agricultural Engineering, pp. 473-474, 2003.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationa License.

Tractor Guidance System for Farm Work Using DGPS and Gyroscope

Keiichi Inoue*, Kazuhiro Nii**, and Yun Zhang**

Keiichi Inoue^*, Kazuhiro Nii^, and Yun Zhang^