Heterogeneous Multi-Robot System for Mapping Environmental Variables of Greenhouses

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 16; no. 7; p. 1018
• Main Authors: Roldán, Juan Jesús, Garcia-Aunon, Pablo, Garzón, Mario, de León, Jorge, Del Cerro, Jaime, Barrientos, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01-07-2016; MDPI
• Subjects: Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide concentration; Control systems; Crops; environmental monitoring; greenhouse; Greenhouses; griculture; Grounds; Humidity; Luminosity; Mathematical models; Mission planning; multi-robot; Multiple robots; Robot control; robotics; Robots; sensory system; UAV; UGV; environmental monitoring; UGV; robotics; sensory system; greenhouse; griculture; UAV; multi-robot
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s16071018

The productivity of greenhouses highly depends on the environmental conditions of crops, such as temperature and humidity. The control and monitoring might need large sensor networks, and as a consequence, mobile sensory systems might be a more suitable solution. This paper describes the application of a heterogeneous robot team to monitor environmental variables of greenhouses. The multi-robot system includes both ground and aerial vehicles, looking to provide flexibility and improve performance. The multi-robot sensory system measures the temperature, humidity, luminosity and carbon dioxide concentration in the ground and at different heights. Nevertheless, these measurements can be complemented with other ones (e.g., the concentration of various gases or images of crops) without a considerable effort. Additionally, this work addresses some relevant challenges of multi-robot sensory systems, such as the mission planning and task allocation, the guidance, navigation and control of robots in greenhouses and the coordination among ground and aerial vehicles. This work has an eminently practical approach, and therefore, the system has been extensively tested both in simulations and field experiments.