Agricultural unmanned ground vehicles: A review from the stability point of view

Abstract

Agricultural ground vehicles often have to traverse unstructured terrain, i.e., terrain whose conditions cannot be precisely predicted during its displacement. Such characteristics restrict the use of robots in the agricultural field because their stability could be compromised by their interaction with the terrain. As it does not have a human operator capable of observing, predicting, and controlling the interaction of the vehicle with the terrain. Therefore, a robot must deal with the unpredictability caused by this interaction, a task that was previously performed by the human operator. Given the relevance of the topic, this study investigates the literature on agricultural unmanned ground vehicles from the stability point of view, and also presents relevant criteria for dealing with the stability of agricultural robots in terms of their design and selection.