2 big milestones today:
Our robot, intended to work at the Lakehead University Agricultural Research Station, has been given the name “LUARI” for Lakehead University Agricultural Robotic Imager!
LUARI was taken outside for the first autonomous mission. It worked well when travelling in a straight line but didn’t follow the programmed track when it was curved. It seems that only the Deep camera, which creates a point cloud, was being used for navigation and this was not sufficient in the grassy area. The intent is to use the GPS receiver as an RTK rover with a base station. We have a surveyed point elsewhere on campus to use for the base station for the next test of the autonomous navigation system and multiple surveyed points already located at LUARS when we begin imaging this summer.