Autonomous Navigation of a Forestry Robot Equipped with a Scanning Laser

This abstract is an overview of our research project entitled "Innovative Forest Plantation", currently in progress. The aim of this project is to automate traditionally manual tasks for poplar plantations in the first years after planting, in particular mechanical weeding without the use of herbicides. The poplar forest is considered as a semi-structured environment where the dense canopy prevents the use of GPS signals and laser sensors are often preferred to localize the vehicle. In this paper, we focus on one of the main functionalities: autonomous navigation, which consists in detecting and locating trees to move safely in such complex environment. Autonomous navigation requires both a precise and robust mapping and localization solution. In this context, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is very well-suited solution. The constructed map can be reliably used to plan semantic paths of the mobile robot in order treat specifically each tree. Simulations conducted on Gazebo and Robot Operation System (ROS) have proven that the robot could navigate autonomously in a poplar forest.