Field Robot Event 2004

an autonomous robot for a maize field · 2004

On 17 and 18 June 2004 I took part in the second Field Robot Event, hosted by the Farm Technology Group of Wageningen University & Research in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Teams built robots that navigate autonomously between the rows of a maize field.

Sponsored by Rockingstone, I built RSFR-1. It is based on a Tamiya TXT-1 RC car with four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering, and senses the rows of maize around it with eight sonar sensors. Because it is symmetrical front to back, it can drive into the next row or back out of a dead end without turning around.

RSFR-1 is described on pages 87–103 (PDF pages 97–113) of the Proceedings of the Field Robot Event 2004 (PDF, 5.8 MB).