Autonomous vineyard spraying robot

With the aim to facilitate workers during harvesting and cultivating and to carry bins full of bunches of grapes up to the end of the rows, a versatile multifunction electrical vehicle has been developed with different configurations: man guided, remote controlled, semi or fully autonomous. The vehicle is actuated by means of two DC motors powered by two sealed lead-acid batteries that allows up to ten hours of operations. It gets on rubber tracks and is able to carry up to 200 kg payload. Also, it could be provided with low cost, but very reliable, sensors (like ultrasound rangers or low cost CCD sensors or webcams) as well as with more sophisticated as DGPS or laser ranger. The video shows the robot used for fully autonomous chemicals spraying operations when it is equipped with suitable tools, increasing operators safety and a lower level of environment chemical contamination. DIEEI Università degli Studi di Catania, ITALY