• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.19-28
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• 2022

This paper introduces an automatic steering system for straight traveling capable of being mounted on drivable agricultural machinery which user can handle it such as a tractor, a transplant, etc. The modular automatic steering device proposed in the paper is composed of RTK GNSS, IMU, HMI, hydraulic valve, and wheel sensor. The path generation method of the automatic steering system is obtained from two location information(latitude and longitude on each point) measured by GNSS in advance. From HMI, a straight path(AB line) can be created by connecting latitude and longitude on each point and the device makes the machine able to follow the path. During traveling along the reference path, it acquires the real time position data every sample time(0.1s), compares the reference with them and calculates the lateral deviation. The values of deviation are used to control the steering angle of the machine using hydraulic valve mounted on the axle of front wheel. In this paper, Pure Pursuit algorithm is applied used in autonomous vehicles frequently. For the analysis of traveling characteristics, field tests were executed about these conditions: velocity of 2, 3, 4km/h which is applied to general agricultural work and ground surface of solid(asphalt) and weak condition(soil) such as farmland. In the case of weak ground state, two experiments were executed about no-load(without work) and load(with work such as plowing). The maximum average deviations were presented 2.44cm, 7.32cm, and 11.34cm during traveling on three ground conditions : asphalt, soil without load and with load(plowing).

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.7
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• pp.1175-1180
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• 2008

Recently agriculture has been intelligenced and automatized because the number of agricultural population is reduced, and the various agricultural machine is developed and utilized actively, In these agricultural automation system, the solenoid valve is widely used for the supply of water and fertilizer to the plant and soil. In this solenoid valve system, AC excitation solenoid valve is widely used because of economic merit and simple system scheme. However, the instantaneous chattering vibration and noise of plunger caused by the alternative MMF variation is very important performance characteristics. In order to reduce vibration the DC excitation solenoid valve is sometimes applied for the high-end applications. In this case, the control circuit is essential to control DC excitation current. It may causes the cost increase and system complexity and it is not suitable for the outdoor agricultural machine. In this paper, the electromagnetic structural improvement of AC solenoid valve is studied to reduce the dynamic vibration and noise. As an economical solution, the shading coil is additionally implemented to the conventional solenoid valve. As a result of this study, the vibration and acoustic noise is largely reduced by the compensating MMF of shading coil and it is verified by the test of prototype.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.143-150
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• 2002

Several researches for site-specific weed control have tried to increase accuracy of weed detection with machine vision technique. However, there is a problem which needs substantial time to perform site-specific spraying. Therefore, new technology for real-time precision spraying system is needed. This research was executed to develope the new technology to estimate weed density and size in real time, and to conduct a real-time site-specific spraying. It would effectively reduce herbicide amounts applied for a crop field. The real-time precision spraying system consisted of a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) with an error of 2 cm, a machine vision system, a geomagnetic sensor for correction of view point of CCD camera and an automatic sprayer with separately controlled nozzle. The weed density was calculated with comparison between position information and a pre-designed electronic map. The position information was obtained in real time using the DGPS and the machine vision. The electronic map contained a position database of crops automatically constructed when seeding. The developed system was tested on an experimental field of Seoul National University. Success rate of the spraying was about 61%.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.45-54
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• 1992

A wireless control system was designed and constructed to control the rice transplanter of walking type with remote control. VHF(very high freqency) was sent from wireless transmitter to wireless reciever by usig 6 channels to control main clutch, steering clutch, plant lever and throttle lever within 200 meter distance between remote control and rice transplanter. The rice transplanter with wireless control system showed good performance for accuracy of travel speed, traveling mobility and turning diameter in the concrete, paddy and dry field. It is concluded that the developed wireless control system could be adapted to control not only conventional rice transplanters but also most of the agricultural machine by changing some parts of the control system.

• Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.47-53
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• 2005

AMachine vision is a promising tool for the autonomous guidance of farm machinery. Conventional CCD camera for the machine vision needs a desktop PC to install a frame grabber, however, a web camera is ready to use when plugged in the USB port. A web camera with a notebook PC can replace existing camera system. Autonomous steering control system of this research was intended to be used for combine harvester. If the web camera can recognize cut/uncut edge of crop, which will be the reference for steering control, then the position of the machine can be determined in terms of lateral offset and heading angle. In this research, a white line was used as a cut/uncut edge of crop for steering control. Image processing algorithm including capturing image in the web camera was developed to determine the desired travel path. An experimental vehicle was constructed to evaluate the system performance. Since the vehicle adopted differential drive steering mechanism, it is steered by the difference of rotation speed between left and right wheels. According to the position of vehicle, the steering algorithm was developed as well. Evaluation tests showed that the experimental vehicle could travel within an RMS error of 0.8cm along the desired path at the ground speed of $9\sim41cm/s$. Even when the vehicle started with initial offsets or tilted heading angle, it could move quickly to track the desired path after traveling $1.52\sim3.5m$. For turning section, i.e., the curved path with curvature of 3 m, the vehicle completed its turning securely.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2013

Autonomous agricultural machines that are operated in small-scale farmland frequently experience turning and changes in direction. Thus, unlike when they are operated in large-scale farmland, the steering control systems need to be controlled precisely so that travel errors can be minimized. This study aims to develop a control algorithm for improving the path tracking performance of a steering system by analyzing the effect of the setting of the waypoint, which serves as the reference point for steering when an autonomous agricultural machine moves along a path or a coordinate, on control errors. A simulation was performed by modeling a 26-hp tractor steering system and by applying the equations of motion of a tractor, with the use of a computer. Path tracking errors could be reduced using an algorithm which sets the waypoint for steering on a travel path depending on the radius of curvature of the path and which then controls the speed and steering angle of the vehicle, rather than by changing the steering speed or steering ratio which are dependent on mechanical performance.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.284-291
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• 2007

This study was to investigate performance of position, basic controls and additional control for man-machine interface on a 3-point hitch of a tractor. The developed additional control was one-touchup, backup, turnup, liftarm limited, PTO on/off and an external control. As a result of experiment, maximum steady state error of response system was lower than $0.8^{\circ}$ and this result showed the function operated normally because the dead band of system set was ${\pm}1^{\circ}$. There was no abnormal situation by switch operation and sensor signal during the performance test. The results of experiment showed the characteristics of the response was sufficient to be used as the position and additional control system for tractors.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.30 no.3 s.110
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• pp.172-178
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• 2005

Grading and sorting an indeterminate form of agricultural products such as sweet potatoes and potatoes are a labor intensive job because its shape and size are various and complicate. It costs a great deal to sort sweet potato in an indeterminate forms. There is a great need for an automatic grader fur the potatoes. Machine vision is the promising solution for this purpose. The optical indices for qualifying weight and appearance quality such as shape, color, defects, etc. were obtained and an on-line sorting system was developed. The results are summarized as follows. Sorting system combined with an on-line inspection device was composed of 5 sections, human inspection, feeding, illumination chamber, image processing & control, and grading & discharging. The algorithms to compute geometrical parameters related to the external guality were developed and implemented for sorting the deformed sweet potatoes. Grading accuracy by image processing was $96.4\%$ and the processing capacity was 10,800 pieces per hour.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.186-195
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• 2008

In this paper, a prototype tele-operative system with a mobile base was developed in order to automate cultivation of house melon. A man-machine interactive hybrid decision-making system via tele-operative task interface was proposed to overcome limitations of computer image recognition. Identifying house melon including position data from the field image was critical to automate cultivation. And it was not simple especially when melon is covered partly by leaves and stems. The developed system was composed of 5 major modules: (a) main remote monitoring and task control module, (b) wireless remote image acquisition and data transmission module, (c) three-wheel mobile base mounted with a 4 dof articulated type robot manipulator (d) exchangeable modular type end tools, and (e) melon storage module. The system was operated through the graphic user interface using touch screen monitor and wireless data communication among operator, computer, and machine. Once task was selected from the task control and monitoring module, the analog signal of the color image of the field was captured and transmitted to the host computer using R.F. module by wireless. A sequence of algorithms to identify location and size of a melon was performed based on the local image processing. Laboratory experiment showed the developed prototype system showed the practical feasibility of automating various cultivating tasks of house melon.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.141-150
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• 2000

This study was carried out to de develop a control strategy of a fruit harvesting redundant robot. The method of generating a safe trajectory, which avoids collisions with obstracles such as branches or immature fruits, in the 3D(3-dimension) space using artificial potential field technique and virtual plane concept was proposed. Also, the method of setting reference velocity vectors to follow the trajectory and to avoid obstacles in the 3D space was proposed. Developed methods were verified with computer simulations and with actual robot tests. Fro the actual robot tests, a machine vision system was used for detecting fruits and obstacles, Results showed that developed control method could reduce the occurrences of the robot manipulator located in the possible collision distance. with 10 virtual obstacles generated randomly in the 3 D space, maximum rates of the occurrences of the robot manipulator located in the possible collision distance, 0.03 m, from the obstacles were 8 % with 5 degree of freedom (DOF), 8 % with 6-DOF, and 4% with 7-DOF, respectively.