Performance of a Vision-Based Tractor Guidance System

A vision based tractor guidance system was designed and developed using distributed control techniques. The components and their interaction with each other are discussed. A geometric steering model was used to predict offset error based on heading error. Simulated straight crop rows were developed to test the system. Results show that the overall performance of the steering correction system was good for sufficient initial tractor orientation. The system proved to be unstable for large errors and that the geometric model incorporated was not capable of handling large heading and offset errors.