Developing and evaluating an autonomous agricultural all-terrain vehicle for field experimental rollover simulations

Abstract

• CPDs’ effectiveness should be evaluated with repeatable rollover experiments. • An autonomous ATV is expected to deliver repeatable results in rollover simulations. • The developed autonomous ATV can accurately follow an assigned path with consistent speeds under various loads. Utility All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are commonly used on farms for agricultural activities such as carrying implements, applying fertilizers, and transportation. Among all agricultural ATV incidents on farms, rollover crushes are the leading cause of fatalities. Crush Protection Devices (CPDs) are passive safety structures that potentially decrease the severity of injuries and the number of deaths in agricultural ATV rollover incidents. However, there are contradictions in the results of previous studies regarding the effectiveness of CPDs in protecting the operator in rollover incidents. The effectiveness of CPDs should be evaluated experimentally with an autonomous ATV, allowing repeatable and systematic rollover tests. This study aims at developing three automatic control systems on an ATV for future rollover simulations: (1) Global Positioning System (GPS)- based navigation system that allows autonomous steering, (2) remote cruise control module for keeping consistent riding speeds, and (3) remote braking system for safety in future unmanned ATV tests. The performance of each system was examined by operating the autonomous ATV in an outdoor testing terrain. The term autonomy in this study refers to the autonomous steering system, along with the remotely controlled speed and braking systems. Results showed that the developed systems performed within the acceptable range for conducting future rollover tests accurately and safely. Application of the autonomous ATV expects to deliver repeatable results in rollover simulations, and thus increases the reliability of CPD evaluation.