Paths Planning for Agricultural Robots: Recent Development, Taxonomy, Challenges, and Opportunities for Future Research

Abstract

The world is currently experiencing population explosion, and it has been forecast that the population would reach nine billion by the year 2050. This rapid population growth is accompanied with new challenges, including high demand for food supply, which may lead to food crises. Contemporary agricultural methods and resources cannot meet the forecast food demand. Precision agriculture is one of the best ways to meet this demand, and using agricultural robots is an important aspect of it. Many researchers have been conducting studies on the application of robots in agricultural tasks such as farm clearance, seeding, seedling, spraying, fertilization, and harvesting. This paper presents a comprehensive review on path planning techniques for agricultural robots. it focuses on different types of agricultural robots and path plans in use. It also provides taxonomy of agricultural robot path plans, metadata analysis, and deep insights into the recent developments in the research area, while pointing out the challenges being faced and possible future solutions. This article may serve as a guide to early career researchers with interest in agricultural robots to easily understand the current developments and the future research focus in this field.