Flatness-Based Control of a Mechatronic Weed Killer Autonomous Robot

This paper describes an advanced command method for controlling a weed killer robot designed to work through corn ranks autonomously. The control task consists in guiding precisely the robot between two ranks of young corn seedlings while it weeds. The kinematic model developed shows the non linearity of the system and how it impacts the command accuracy of the robot. We bring here, for the first time, a high-level control based on non linear equations to aim for a very robust control method. Robustness is needed in this kind of applications because of the important uncertainties and perturbations in the environment. In this way, we hope the future robot will be able to work in spite of mud, cracks and rocks present on its track.