54 1070-9932/15©2015IEEE • IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE • MARCH 2015 Robot Farmers By Marcel Bergerman, Silvio M. Maeta, Ji Zhang, Gustavo M. Freitas, Bradley Hamner, Sanjiv Singh, and George Kantor Autonomous Orchard Vehicles Help Tree Fruit Production T his article presents perception and navigation sys- tems for a family of autonomous orchard vehicles. The systems are customized to enable safe and reli- able driving in modern planting environments. The perception system is based on a global posi- tioning system (GPS)-free sensor suite composed of a two- dimensional (2-D) laser scanner, wheel and steering encoders, and algorithms that process the sensor data and output the vehicle’s location in the orchard and guidance commands for row following and turning. Localization is based on range data to premapped landmarks, currently one at the beginning and one at the end of each tree row. The nav- igation system takes as inputs the vehicle’s current location and guidance commands, plans trajectories for row following and turning, and drives the motors to achieve fully autono- mous block coverage. The navigation system also includes an obstacle detection subsystem that prevents the vehicle from colliding with people, trees, and bins. To date, the vehicles sporting the perception and navigation infrastructure have traversed over 350 km in research and commercial orchards and nurseries in several U.S. states. Time trials showed that the autonomous orchard vehicles enable efficiency gains of up to 58% for fruit production tasks conducted on the top part of trees when compared with the same task performed on lad- ders. Anecdotal evidence collected from growers and workers indicates that replacing ladders with autonomous vehicles will make orchard work safer and more comfortable. Agricultural Robotics Agriculture is the backbone of society, providing the food, feed, fiber, and fuel on which all humans depend to live. The industry’s greatest challenge is to meet the demands of a growing population without increasing—or better yet, while reducing—its environmental footprint. Experts indicate that we must double our agricultural production if we are to meet the needs of humankind in 2050 [4]. Obviously, this cannot be done by simply doubling the inputs (water, land, labor, seeds, chemicals, etc.) because many of them are over- stretched or their environmental impact is already too large. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2014.2369292 Date of publication: 13 March 2015 © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/SSPLAJN