A methodology for composing and coordinating primitive fuzzy behaviors to guide mobile agricultural robots

This work presents a method for developing complex navigational behavior by combining some simple fuzzy behaviors and simple non-fuzzy behaviors for a mobile agricultural robot (MAR). Fuzzy rules are used to compose and coordinate the simple behaviors using the specific agricultural contexts. A new strategy to coordinate behaviors based on multiples arbiters that operate in different stages on the robotic architecture to perform guidance and navigation actions. An experimental robotic platform to simulate and support the researches on behavior based on architecture for agricultural robots is proposed. Experiments have been performed in order to evaluate the implemented behaviors and to evaluate the operational ability of the robotic platform on a simulated agricultural environment. The results show the feasibility of the proposed approach. The modularity of the architecture using decentralized arbiters simplifies the implementation of the robotic architecture. The strategy based on multiple arbiters is a feasible method to implement the behavior coordination and to compose complex behaviors.