Covering path generation for autonomous turf-care vehicle

A covering path generation algorithm is developed to generate a lengthwise pattern based on a polygon describing the outer boundary and obstacles (polygon holes) of a geographical area. The algorithm is applied to an autonomous lawn-care robot for application to large grass turfs, for example golf-courses, which require structured and precise cutting patterns. The geographical polygon is recorded by manually driving the vehicle around the contour, resulting in a polygon given as geographical (latitude, longitude) coordinates of the vertices, which together with machine parameters are used to generate a suitable toolpath. The algorithm has been tested on a recorded polygon from a local park turf which is non-convex and has holes, illustrating the algorithm functionality and limitations wrt. optimality. In particular, the algorithm can generate a tool-path for any polygon orientation.