Development of an Autonomous Forest Machine for Path Tracking

In many respects traditional automation in the forest-machine industry has reached an upper limit, since the driver already has to deal with an excess of information and take too many decisions at a very high pace. To further automation still, introduction of semi-autonomous and autonomous functions are expected and considered necessary. This paper describes an ongoing project along these ideas. We describe the development of the hardware and software of an unmanned shuttle that shifts timber from the area of felling to the main roads for further transportation. A new path-tracking algorithm is introduced, and demonstrated as being superior to standard techniques, such as Follow the Carrot and Pure Pursuit. To facilitate the research and development, a comprehensive software architecture for sensor and actuator interfacing is developed. Obstacle avoidance is accomplished by a new kind of radar, developed for and by the automotive industry. Localization is accomplished by combining data from a Real-Time Kinematic Differential GPS/GLONASS and odometry. Tests conducted on a simulator and a small-scale robot show promising results. Tests on the real forest machine are ongoing.