PhD Work-Cooperative robotic systems for forest inventory

 Abstract

This work addresses the application of cooperative robotic systems in forest inventory task. The specific context of the use of robotic systems in forest brings a set of technical, geographic and environment constraints that shape the approach and possible techniques to be applied. In this work, we will only address the task of collecting images at selected points in the forest using a team of cooperative robots. Our goal will be, given a predefined number of robots and a predefined number of selected targets, to use an algorithm that maximizes the efficiency of the cooperative robots for the execution of the inventory tasks. Other related activities, such as the analysis and decision of which targets should be inventoried, data communication, database and volume calculations based on measurements, will be addressed in related future works.

INTRODUCTION

This work proposes an approach for the optimization of the forest inventory tasks to be performed by multiple robots, which will perform the tasks of measuring and evaluating the volumes of wood in the areas that are selected for inventory. This work is organized as follows: in section 1, we will explain the environment and applicability where this study is intended to be inserted; we will have a subsection for historical analysis and concepts of applicability of the theme. Section 2 covers related works on multi robot systems. Section 3 briefly introduces two well-known algorithms for the optimization of task assignment to robots: the Hungarian algorithm and the Vickrey auction. In section 4, we discuss and evaluate those algorithms to understand which one best suits the objective of the forest inventory. Section 5 presents the main conclusions of this work.

Author: Manuel Robalinho

More in this link.