TrimBot2020 is an EU funded project that will research the underlying robotics and vision technologies and prototype the first outdoor garden trimming robot. The robot will navigate over varying terrain, approach rose bushes, hedges and boxwood topiary, to trim them to an ideal shape. The robot will be based on a modified commercial robot lawn mower, which will navigate using a user-defined garden map and 3D scene analysis, and then visually servo a novel electric plant cutter.
Achieving this will require a combination of robotics and 3D computer vision research and innovation activities. Original developments will be required for 3D sensing of semi-regular surfaces with physical texture (overgrown plant surfaces), coping with outdoor lighting variations, self-localising and navigating over real terrain and around obstacles, visual servoing to align the vehicle with potentially moving target plants, visual servoing to align leaf and branch cutters to a compliant surface, and innovative engineering to deliver all this on a small battery-powered consumer-grade vehicle.
Coordinator
Robert Fisher
School of Informatics
Univ. of Edinburgh
1.26 Informatics Forum
10 Crichton Street
Edinburgh EH8 9AB
United Kingdom
Phone: (44)-131-651-3441 (direct line)
Phone: (44)-131-650-2685 (secretary)
Fax: (44)-131-651-3435
Email:
