Jun. 2022, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, ”Information and Communications Month" Commendation by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Sep. 2020, 日本生物環境工学会, パラダイム・シフト大賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2017, 日本生物環境工学会, 特別研究功績賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2017, 総務省北海道総合通信局, 北海道総合通信局長表彰　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2017, 北海道, 北海道科学技術賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2016, 農業情報学会, 新農林社国際賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2016, 読売新聞社, 読売農学賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2016, 日本農学会, 日本農学賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2015, 日本農業工学会, フェロー　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2015, 日本農業工学会, 日本農業工学会賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2014, 日本生物環境工学会, 論文賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2013, 日本生物環境工学会, フェロー　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2013, 内閣府, 宇宙開発利用大賞内閣府特命担当大臣（宇宙政策）賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2013, 農業情報学会, フェロー　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2012, Royal Academy of Engineering, Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Award　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2012, 北海道大学, 研究総長賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2011, 日本生物環境工学会, 特別国際学術賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2010, 農業機械学会, 論文賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2006, 農業情報学会, 橋本賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2006, 農業情報学会, 学術賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2003, 農業情報学会, 奨励賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2001, 米国農業工学会(ASAE), Best-Paper Award　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2000, 国際農業工学会(CIGR), 技術貢献賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

2000, 農業機械学会, 森技術賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

1998, 農業機械学会, 学術賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

1997, 日本機械学会, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス部門賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

1994, 農業機械学会, 研究奨励賞　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸

Smart vineyard row navigation: A machine vision approach leveraging YOLOv8　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Sristi Saha, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 229, 0168, 1699, Jan. 2025, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Development of the grape harvesting robot using a multi-step detection method based on AI and position estimation algorithm　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Weiguo WANG, Liangliang YANG, Noboru NOGUCHI
Smart Agricultural Technology, 9, Dec. 2024, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Real-Time Tree Row End Detection: A Machine Vision-Based Approach to Improve Navigation of Electric Vehicles in Vineyards
Sristi Saha, Noboru Noguchi
2024 6th International Conference on Robotics and Computer Vision (ICRCV), 104, 108, IEEE, 20 Sep. 2024
International conference proceedings

Comparison of machine learning and deep learning models for the assessment of rondo wine grape quality with a hyperspectral camera　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Khin Nilar Swe, Noboru Noguchi
Smart Agricultural Technology, 8, Aug. 2024, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author]
English, Scientific journal

Assessment of remote sensing in measuring soil parameters for precision tillage
Ishmael Nartey Amanor, Ospina Alarcon Ricardo, Noboru Noguchi
Journal of Terramechanics, 113-114, 100973, 100973, Elsevier BV, Jun. 2024, [Last author, Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

サイバーフィジカルシステムにおけるロボットトラクタの走行制御　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
森田 豪, Sristi Saha, 野口 伸
農業食料工学会誌, 85, 6, 393, 399, Dec. 2023, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
Japanese, Scientific journal

Remote safety system for a robot tractor using a monocular camera and a YOLO-based method
Sixun Chen, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 215, 108409, 108409, Elsevier BV, Dec. 2023, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

Novel approaches for a brix prediction model in Rondo wine grapes using a hyperspectral Camera: Comparison between destructive and Non-destructive sensing methods
Khin Nilar Swe, Sawa Takai, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 211, 108037, 108037, Elsevier BV, Aug. 2023, [Peer-reviewed]
Scientific journal

Work schedule optimization for electric agricultural robots in orchards　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Tomoaki Hizatate, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture Volume, 210, 107889, Jul. 2023, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]

遠隔監視・圃場間移動可能なレベル3ロボット農機の実現に向けて
石橋 亮太, Sristi SAHA, 森田 豪, 前田 浩明, 河村 憲一, 野口 伸
電子情報通信学会論文誌, C, 4, 154, 162, Apr. 2023, [Peer-reviewed], [Invited], [Last author, Corresponding author]

Research on autonomous driving technology for a robot vehicle in mountainous farmland using the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System
Yoshitomo Yamasaki, Noboru Noguchi
Smart Agricultural Technology, 3, 100141, 100141, Elsevier BV, Feb. 2023, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

Retrieval of Fractional Vegetation Cover from Remote Sensing Image of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based on Mixed Pixel Decomposition Method
Mengmeng Du, Minzan Li, Noboru Noguchi, Jiangtao Ji, Mengchao (George) Ye
Drones, 7, 1, 43, 43, MDPI AG, 07 Jan. 2023, [Peer-reviewed]
Scientific journal, FVC (fractional vegetation cover) is highly correlated with wheat plant density in the reviving period, which is an important indicator for conducting variable-rate nitrogenous topdressing. In this study, with the objective of improving inversion accuracy of wheat plant density, an innovative approach of retrieval of FVC values from remote sensing images of a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was proposed based on the mixed pixel decomposition method. Firstly, remote sensing images of an experimental wheat field were acquired by using a DJI Mini UAV and endmembers in the image were identified. Subsequently, a linear unmixing model was used to subdivide mixed pixels into components of vegetation and soil, and an abundance map of vegetation was acquired. Based on the abundance map of vegetation, FVC was calculated. Consequently, a linear regression model between the ground truth data of wheat plant density and FVC was established. The coefficient of determination (R2), RMSE (root mean square error), and RRMSE (Relative-RMSE) of the inversion model were calculated as 0.97, 1.86 plants/m2, and 0.677%, which indicates strong correlation between the FVC of mixed pixel decomposition method and wheat plant density. Therefore, we can conclude that the mixed pixel decomposition model of the remote sensing image of a UAV significantly improved the inversion accuracy of wheat plant density from FVC values, which provides method support and basic data for variable-rate nitrogenous fertilization in the wheat reviving period in the manner of precision agriculture.

A vision-based road detection system for the navigation of an agricultural autonomous tractor
Sristi SAHA, Tsuyoshi MORITA, Noboru NOGUCHI
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 16, 2, 43, 52, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, 2023, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

Obstacle avoidance method based on double DQN for agricultural robots
Yue Yu, Yufei Liu, Jichun Wang, Noboru Noguchi, Yong He
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 204, 107546, 107546, Elsevier BV, Jan. 2023, [Peer-reviewed]
Scientific journal

ビジョンセンサによるぶどう果樹園の自動走行に関する研究　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
山中章弘, 山﨑歓友, 野口 伸
農業食料工学会誌, 84, 4, 256, 264, Jul. 2022, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]

Autonomous Robotic System for Pumpkin Harvesting
Ali Roshanianfard, Noboru Noguchi, Sina Ardabili, Csaba Mako, Amir Mosavi
Agronomy, 12, 7, 1594, 1594, MDPI AG, 30 Jun. 2022, [Peer-reviewed]
Scientific journal, The present study focused on the development, optimization, and performance evaluation of a harvesting robot for heavyweight agricultural products. The main objective of developing this system is to improve the harvesting process of the mentioned crops. The pumpkin was selected as a heavyweight target crop for this study. The main components of the robot consist of mobile platforms (the main robot tractor and a parallel robot tractor), a manipulation system and its end-effector, and an integrated control unit. The development procedure was divided into four stages: stage I (designed system using Solidworks), stage II (installation of the developed system on a temporary platform), stage III (developed system on an RT-1 (Yanmar EG453)), and stage IV (developed system on an RT-2 (Yanmar YT5113)). Various indicators related to the performance of the robot were evaluated. The accuracy of 5.8 and 4.78 mm in x and y directions and repeatability of 5.11 mm were observed. The harvesting success rate of 87~92%, and damage rate of 5% resulted in the evaluation of the final version. The average cycle time was 35.1 s, 42.6 s, and 43.2 s for stages II, III, and IV, respectively. The performance evaluations showed that the system’s indicators are good enough to harvest big-sized and heavy-weighted crops. Development of the unique and unified system, including a mobile platform, a manipulation system, an end-effector, and an integrated algorithm, completed the targeted harvesting process appropriately. The system can increase the speed and improve the harvesting process because it can work all day long, has a precise robotic manipulation and end-effector, and a programmable controlling system that can work autonomously.

Experiment of Integrated Technologies in Robotics, Network, and Computing for Smart Agriculture
Ryota ISHIBASHI, Takuma TSUBAKI, Shingo OKADA, Hiroshi YAMAMOTO, Takeshi KUWAHARA, Kenichi KAWAMURA, Keisuke WAKAO, Takatsune MORIYAMA, Ricardo OSPINA, Hiroshi OKAMOTO, Noboru NOGUCHI
IEICE Transactions on Communications, E105.B, 4, 364, 378, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communications Engineers (IEICE), 01 Apr. 2022, [Peer-reviewed], [Invited], [Last author]
Scientific journal

Development of a high-accuracy autonomous sensing system for a field scouting robot
Yoshitomo Yamasaki, Mizuki Morie, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 193, 106630, 106630, Elsevier BV, Feb. 2022, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

Optimal route planning and a turning method for an electric vehicle robot in an irregularly shaped vineyard
Yoshitomo Yamasaki, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC-PapersOnLine, 55, 32, 1, 5, Elsevier BV, 2022
Scientific journal

Real-time Disease Detection in Rice Fields in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta
Thanh Tinh NGUYEN, Ricardo OSPINA, Noboru NOGUCHI, Hiroshi OKAMOTO, Quang Hieu NGO
Environment Control in Biology, 59, 2, 77, 85, Japanese Society of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Engineers and Scientists, 01 Apr. 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

Utilization of Quasi-Zenith Satellite System for Navigation of a Robot Combine Harvester
Kannapat Udompant, Ricardo Ospina, Yong-Joo Kim, Noboru Noguchi
Agronomy, 11, 3, 483, 483, MDPI AG, 05 Mar. 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
Scientific journal, The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of a robot combine harvester by comparing the Centimeter Level Augmentation Service (CLAS) and the Multi-Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Advanced Demonstration tool for Orbit and Clock Analysis (MADOCA) from the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) by using the Real Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning technique as a reference. The first section of this study evaluates the availability and the precision under static conditions by measuring the activation time, the reconnection time, and obtaining a Twice Distance Root Mean Square (2DRMS) of 0.04 m and 0.10 m, a Circular Error Probability (CEP) of 0.03 m and 0.08 m, and a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.57 m and 0.54 m for the CLAS and MADOCA, respectively. The second section evaluates the accuracy under dynamic conditions by using a GNSS navigation-based combine harvester running in an experimental field. The results show that the RMSE of the lateral deviation is between 0.04 m and 0.69 m for MADOCA and between 0.03 m and 0.31 m for CLAS; which suggest that the CLAS positioning augmentation system can be utilized for the robot combine harvester if the user considers these accuracy and dynamic characteristics.

Correlation Analysis of Vegetation Indices Based on Multi-temporal Satellite Images and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Images with Wheat Protein Contents
Mengmeng DU, Noboru NOGUCHI, Atsushi ITO, Yukinori SHIBUYA
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 14, 3, 86, 94, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
Scientific journal

Basic research on a field scouting robot monitoring crop progress and condition (Part 1)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Yamasaki, Y, Ikeda, I, Ospina, R, Noguchi, N
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 83, 1, 37, 41, Jan. 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
English

Development of phenotyping system using low altitude UAV imagery and deep learning
Suxing Lyu, Noboru Noguchi, Ricardo Ospina, Yuji Kishima
International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, 14, 1, 207, 215, International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (IJABE), 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal, In this study, a lightweight phenotyping system that combined the advantages of both deep learning-based panicle detection and the photogrammetry based on light consumer-level UAVs was proposed. A two-year experiment was conducted to perform data collection and accuracy validation. A deep learning model, named Mask Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (Mask R-CNN), was trained to detect panicles in complex scenes of paddy fields. A total of 13 857 images were fed into Mask R-CNN, with 80% used for training and 20% used for validation. Scores, precision, recall, Average Precision (AP), and F1-score of the Mask R-CNN, were 82.46%, 80.60%, 79.46%, and 79.66%, respectively. A complete workflow was proposed to preprocess flight trajectories and remove repeated detection and noises. Eventually, the evident changed in rice growth during the heading stage was visualized with geographic distributions, and the total number of panicles was predicted before harvest. The average error of the predicted amounts of panicles was 33.98%. Experimental results showed the feasibility of using the developed system as the high-throughput phenotyping approach.

Real-time states estimation of a farm tractor using dynamic mode decomposition
Hao Wang, Noboru Noguchi
GPS Solutions, 25, 1, Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 13 Nov. 2020, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author]
English, Scientific journal, Abstract

We present a pure data-driven method to estimate vehicle dynamics from the measurements of sideslip and yaw rate in the use of GPS and inertial navigation system. The GPS and INS configuration provides vehicle position, velocity vector, vehicle orientation, and yaw rate observations. A new dynamic mode decomposition with control (DMDc) method denoises the state observations by adopting the total least-squares algorithm. The total least-squares DMD with control (tlsDMDc) helps discover the underlying dynamics with the time-dependent observations of states and external control. The experiments of a simulated linear dynamic model with synthetic Gaussian noise illustrate that the solutions of tlsDMDc are more accurate than the standard DMDc to characterize underlying dynamics with imperfect measurements. We additionally investigate how the algorithm performs on vehicle motion deduction and sensor bias correction. It has been shown that the tlsDMDc-based state estimator with the couple of GPS and inertial sensor measurements provides accurate and robust observation in the presence of model error and measurement noise.

Pumpkin harvesting robotic end-effector
Ali Roshanianfard, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 174, 105503, 105503, Elsevier BV, Jul. 2020, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author]
Scientific journal

Real-Time Weed Detection in Rice Fields in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Nguyen, T. T, Ospina, R, Noguchi, N, Okamoto, H, Ngo, Q.H
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 82, 3, 247, 256, May 2020, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]

Improved inclination correction method applied to the guidance system of agricultural vehicles
Ricardo Ospina, Noboru Noguchi
International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, 13, 6, 183, 194, International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (IJABE), 2020, [Last author, Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Navigation of a robot tractor using the centimeter level augmentation information via Quasi-Zenith Satellite System
Hao Wang, Noboru Noguchi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 12, 4, 414, 419, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, Oct. 2019, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Navigation of a robot tractor using the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (Part 1)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Wang Hao, Noguchi, N
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 81, 4, 250, 255, Jul. 2019, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Simultaneous mapping and crop row detection by fusing data from wide angle and telephoto images
Ricardo Ospina, Noboru Noguchi
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 162, 602, 612, Elsevier BV, Jul. 2019, [Peer-reviewed], [Last author, Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Development of a positioning system using UAV-based computer vision for an airboat navigation in paddy field
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Lingguang Liang
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 162, 126, 133, Elsevier BV, Jul. 2019, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
English, Scientific journal

Optimum harvesting area of convex and concave polygon field for path planning of robot combine harvester
Rahman Md. Mostafizar, Ishii Kazunobu, Noguchi Noboru
INTELLIGENT SERVICE ROBOTICS, 12, 2, 167, 179, Apr. 2019, [Peer-reviewed]

Development of autonomous navigation system for rice transplanter
Yin Xiang, Du Juan, Noguchi Noboru, Yang Tengxiang, Jin Chengqian
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 11, 6, 89, 94, Nov. 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Adaptive turning control for an agricultural robot tractor
Wang Hao, Noguchi Noboru
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 11, 6, 113, 119, Nov. 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

A Study on Adjoint Working Method of Harrowing and Seeding Using GPS Automated Steering System
三浦尚史, 野口伸
農業食料工学会誌, 80, 5, 297‐306, Sep. 2018, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese

Development and evaluation of a low-cost precision seeding control system for a corn drill
Yin Xiang, Noguchi Noboru, Yang Tengxiang, Jin Chengqian
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 11, 5, 95, 99, Sep. 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Agricultural Vehicle Robot
Noguchi Noboru
JOURNAL OF ROBOTICS AND MECHATRONICS, 30, 2, 165, 172, Apr. 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Characterization of pumpkin for a harvesting robot
Ali Roshanianfard, Noboru Noguchi
51, 17, 23, 30, Elsevier B.V., 01 Jan. 2018
English, International conference proceedings, Designing an agricultural robot must be supported by characterization of target crop. In this study, three verities of pumpkin including JEJEJ, TC2A, and Hokutokou were taken under physical evaluation to find an appropriated robotic harvesting procedure. The main objective of this study was finding required parameters to design a unique end-effector for harvesting the pumpkin. In this regard, three experimentations were conducted including general physical properties for investigating the pumpkin orientation and possible harvesting methodologies, compression strength test for measuring the compression yield force in grasping stage, and bending-shear test for measuring the yield force to cut the stem. The results showed that the average pumpkin's lift weight was 26% more than pumpkin's pure weight. The orientation of all specimen was unified in the range of (-90° +90°) when the pumpkins were lifted to a certain height. In average, the tested pumpkins have a radius, volume, and weight of 105.62 mm, 4.95 × 106 mm3, 3.03 kg, respectively. The combination of lifting technique with pumpkin parametrization were made the infrastructure of a robotic harvesting methodology. Based on the compression test, the maximum, minimum, and average compression force of JEJEJ, TC2A, Hokutokou was 4.66, 4.58, and 4.61 kN
2.81, 2.06, and 2.24 kN
and 3.37, 3.1, and 3.23kN, respectively. The optimum stress and time period in during of stem cutting were 2.84, 3.3, and 2.01 N ⁄ mm2 and 2.4, 2.03. and 1.39 s for JEJEJE, TC2A and Hokutokou, respectively when a single angles blade with 60° was used to cut the stems.

Alternative method to model an agricultural vehicle's tire parameters
Ricardo Ospina, Noboru Noguchi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 11, 1, 9, 18, Elsevier B.V., 01 Jan. 2018, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, This paper introduces an alternative method to model the tire dynamic parameters of an agricultural vehicle from experimental data sets without the use of conventional test equipment. A Global Positioning System implementing a Real Time Kinematic scheme (RTK-GPS) and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) are used to estimate the vehicle's body sideslip angle and to establish the relation between the tire's lateral forces and slip angles for different soil conditions
in terms of soil moisture content and cone index. To validate the method introduced in this paper, the results obtained from the experimental data sets were compared with an empirical modeling method
which uses a particular form of the relationship between lateral force, normal force and slip angle expressed as an exponential function. Results show that the method introduced in this paper can give a more accurate description of the relation between the tire's lateral forces and slip angles. This knowledge can be applied to improve automatic steering controller systems.

Development of a Small-sized and Low-cost Attitude Measurement Unit for Agricultural Robot Application
Liu Yufei, Noguchi Noboru, Okamoto Hiroshi, Ishii Kazunobu
TARIM BILIMLERI DERGISI-JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, 24, 1, 33, 41, 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Kinematics Analysis and Simulation of A 5DOF Articulated Robotic Arm Applied to Heavy Products Harvesting
Roshanianfard Ali, Noguchi Noboru
TARIM BILIMLERI DERGISI-JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, 24, 1, 91, 104, 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Heavy-weight Crop Harvesting Robot - Controlling Algorithm
Kamata Tatsuki, Roshanianfard Ali, Noguchi Noboru
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 51, 17, 244, 249, 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Performance evaluation of harvesting robot for heavy-weight crops
Roshanianfard Ali, Kamata Tatsuki, Noguchi Noboru
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 51, 17, 332, 338, 2018, [Peer-reviewed]

Development of a multi-robot tractor system for agriculture field work
Chi Zhang, Noboru Noguchi
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 142, 79, 90, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Nov. 2017, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, A multi-robot tractor system for conducting agriculture field work was developed in order to reduce total work time and to improve work efficiency. The robot tractors can form a spatial pattern, I-pattern, V-pattern or W-pattern, during the work process. The safety zones of each robot were defined as a circle and a rectangle. The robots can coordinate to turn to the next lands without collision or deadlock. The efficiency of the system depends on the number of robots, the spatial pattern, the setting distance between each robot, and the field length. Three simulations were carried out to determine the usefulness of the system. The simulation results showed that the efficiency range of three robots using the I-pattern is from 83.2% to 89.8% at a field length of 100 m. The efficiency range of seven robots using the W-pattern is from 59.4% to 65.8% at a field length of 100 m. However, the minimum efficiency of seven robots using the W-pattern is 84.9% at a field length of 500 m. The efficiency would be higher than 85% if the field length was larger than 500 m. Thus, the newly developed multi-robot tractor system is more effective in a large field. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multi-temporal monitoring of wheat growth by using images from satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle
Du Mengmeng, Noguchi Noboru, Itoh Atsushi, Shibuya Yukinori
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 10, 5, 1, 13, CHINESE ACAD AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING, Sep. 2017, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, Recently near-ground remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) witnessed wide applications in obtaining field information. In this research, four Rapideye satellite images and eight RGB images acquired from UAV were used from early June to the end of July, 2015 covering two experimental winter wheat fields, in order to monitor wheat canopy growth status and analyze the correlation among satellite images based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with UAV's RGB images based visible-band difference vegetation index (VDVI) and ground variables of the sampled grain protein contents. Firstly, through image interpretation of UAV's multi-temporal RGB images with fine spatial resolution, the wheat canopy color changes could be intuitively and clearly monitored. Subsequently, by monitoring the changes of satellite images based NDVI as well as VDVI values and UAV's RGB images based VDVI values, the conclusions were made that these three vegetation indices demonstrated the same and synchronized trend of increasing at the early stage of wheat growth season, reaching up to peak values at the same timing, and starting to decrease since then. The results of the correlation analysis between NDVI of satellite images and sampled grain protein contents show that NDVI has good predicative capability for mapping grain protein content before ripening growth stage around June7, 2015, while the reliability of using satellite image based NDVI to predict grain protein contents becomes worse as ripening stage approaches. The regression analysis between UAV's RGB image based VDVI and satellite image based VDVI as well as NDVI showed good coefficients of determination. It is concluded that it is feasible and practical to temporally complement satellite remote sensing by using UAV's RGB images based vegetation indices to monitor wheat growth status and to map within-field spatial variations of grain protein contents for small scale farmlands.

Monitoring of Wheat Growth Status and Mapping of Wheat Yield's within-Field Spatial Variations Using Color Images Acquired from UAV-camera System
Mengmeng Du, Noboru Noguchi
REMOTE SENSING, 9, 3, MDPI AG, Mar. 2017, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, Applications of remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in agriculture has proved to be an effective and efficient way of obtaining field information. In this study, we validated the feasibility of utilizing multi-temporal color images acquired from a low altitude UAV-camera system to monitor real-time wheat growth status and to map within-field spatial variations of wheat yield for smallholder wheat growers, which could serve as references for site-specific operations. Firstly, eight orthomosaic images covering a small winter wheat field were generated to monitor wheat growth status from heading stage to ripening stage in Hokkaido, Japan. Multi-temporal orthomosaic images indicated straightforward sense of canopy color changes and spatial variations of tiller densities. Besides, the last two orthomosaic images taken from about two weeks prior to harvesting also notified the occurrence of lodging by visual inspection, which could be used to generate navigation maps guiding drivers or autonomous harvesting vehicles to adjust operation speed according to specific lodging situations for less harvesting loss. Subsequently orthomosaic images were geo-referenced so that further study on stepwise regression analysis among nine wheat yield samples and five color vegetation indices (CVI) could be conducted, which showed that wheat yield correlated with four accumulative CVIs of visible-band difference vegetation index (VDVI), normalized green-blue difference index (NGBDI), green-red ratio index (GRRI), and excess green vegetation index (ExG), with the coefficient of determination and RMSE as 0.94 and 0.02, respectively. The average value of sampled wheat yield was 8.6 t/ha. The regression model was also validated by using leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) method, of which root-mean-square error of predication (RMSEP) was 0.06. Finally, based on the stepwise regression model, a map of estimated wheat yield was generated, so that within-field spatial variations of wheat yield, which was usually seen as general information on soil fertility, water potential, tiller density, etc., could be better understood for applications of site-specific or variable-rate operations. Average yield of the studied field was also calculated according to the map of wheat yield as 7.2 t/ha.

Simulation and test of an agricultural unmanned airboat maneuverability model
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Roshanian Fard Ali
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 10, 1, 88, 96, CHINESE ACAD AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING, Jan. 2017, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this research was to determine the Nomoto model maneuverability indices of an agricultural unmanned airboat which was developed to perform autonomous weeding and paddy growth monitoring in a paddy field. A global positioning system compass and an inertial measurement unit were attached on the airboat body to record the position, heading and angular rate. The zig-zag experiments were adopted to obtain the maneuverability indices. The Matlab-based maneuvering simulations were conducted and compared with field experimental data of circular motion test and sinusoidal running test, respectively. The results showed that the trace error was at sub-meter level, which expounds the validity of the obtained maneuvering indices. The proposed Nomoto model maneuverability indices can be used to improve the airboat precise automatic control in paddy field.

Fast edge detection method for wheat field based on visual recognition
Teng Zhao, Noboru Noguchi, Liangliang Yang, Kazunobu Ishii, Jun Chen
Nongye Jixie Xuebao/Transactions of the Chinese Society for Agricultural Machinery, 47, 11, 32, 37, Chinese Society of Agricultural Machinery, 25 Nov. 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
Chinese, Scientific journal, To overcome the shortages of the developed method for edge detection system based on laser rangefinder (LF), a vision based fast edge information acquiring algorithm for the LF system was proposed. Inverse perspective mapping (IPM) geometrical transform was used to remove the perspective effect on original mature wheat field. The image after IPM transformation was then processed by illumination reduction and contrast enhancement to make the difference between cut and uncut wheat field more evidently, and then transferred into grayscale image. Threshold segmentation method based on histogram was used to convert grayscale image into a binary image, so as to distinguish the cut and uncut wheat. The target points were clustered by adopting cross correlation method on each horizontal scan line in the binary image, and then Hough transform was used to detect the edge line between cut and uncut wheat. The proposed method extended the field of view of the edge detection system based on LF, and owing to the LF system the region of interest area for image processing was well restricted. The results showed an average deviation of 2.35 cm, with standard deviation of 3.26. This edge detector providing satisfied performance under different conditions, was an effective edge detection method, and met the demand of recognition for navigation path in wheat harvesting.

Development of uncut crop edge detection system based on laser rangefinder for combine harvesters
Zhao Teng, Noboru Noguchi, Yang Liangliang, Kazunobu Ishii, Chen Jun
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 9, 2, 21, 28, CHINESE ACAD AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING, Mar. 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this research was to develop an uncut crop edge detection system for a combine harvester. A laser rangefinder (LF) was selected as a primary sensor, combined with a pan-tilt unit (PTU) and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Three-dimensional field information can be obtained when the PTU rotates the laser rangefinder in the vertical plane. A field profile was modeled by analyzing range data. Otsu's method was used to detect the crop edge position on each scanning profile, and the least squares method was applied to fit the uncut crop edge. Fundamental performance of the system was first evaluated under laboratory conditions. Then, validation experiments were conducted under both static and dynamic conditions in a wheat field during harvesting season. To verify the error of the detection system, the real position of the edge was measured by GPS for accuracy evaluation. The results showed an average lateral error of +/- 12 cm, with a Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE) of 3.01 cm for the static test, and an average lateral error of +/- 25 cm, with an RMSE of 10.15 cm for the dynamic test. The proposed laser rangefinder-based uncut crop edge detection system exhibited a satisfactory performance for edge detection under different conditions in the field, and can provide reliable information for further study.

Leader-follower system using two robot tractors to improve work efficiency
Chi Zhang, Noboru Noguchi, Liangliang Yang
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 121, 269, 281, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Feb. 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, Two robot tractors were used in a leader-follower system for agricultural field work. Each of the robots is fully independent and can conduct field work alone. They can also work together to form a certain spatial arrangement during the operation. During the headland turn, to make the best use of headland, the two robots coordinate to turn to next path and do not keep the spatial arrangement. Each robot is simplified as a rectangular zone, and the two robots cooperate and coordinate to turn to the next path without collision. This system is designed for practical application, and the system gains the ability to tolerate most of the disturbances in a real field. Fault tolerant methods in accordance with agricultural work are illustrated to solve the common disturbances from the GPS and the IMU. Field experiments were conducted to determine the effectiveness of the system. The results of the experiments showed that the two robot tractors can work safely together to complete the field work. The average lateral error of the navigation system of the robots was less than 0.04 m, and the efficiency of the leader-follower system was improved by 95.1% compared with that of a conventional single robot. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of an unmanned surface vehicle for autonomous navigation in a paddy field
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 9, 1, 21, 26, Elsevier, 01 Jan. 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this research was to develop an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) using global positioning system (GPS) compass for autonomous navigation in a paddy field. The surface vehicle used in the research was a radio-controlled air propeller vessel modified into an unmanned surface vehicle platform. The GPS compass was attached to the top of the USV platform as the navigation sensor to provide the position and heading angle. The USV platform can navigate automatically on predefined pathways. From the trajectory data of line-following navigation measured by a total station, the root mean square (RMS) lateral error from the target path was 0.25 m in a no-wind day. The ultimate goal of the research is to realize autonomous herbicide application and paddy growth monitoring based on the USV platform.

Wind direction-based path planning for an agricultural unmanned airboat navigation
Y. Liu, N. Noguchi, K. Ishii, L. Liang
2016 IEEE/SICE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SYSTEM INTEGRATION (SII), 906, 911, IEEE, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, Robotics technology brings innovation for agriculture industry. In order to solve the grain issue and the labor force issue in the world, the smart agriculture is an important approach at present and in the future. In this paper, a new path planning method based on wind direction is proposed for agricultural unmanned boat which is susceptible to the effect of wind. This method could be utilized in an arbitrary convex quadrilateral paddy field or a pond where the agricultural robot boat could navigate automatically. The simulation and field test shows that when the boat does farm work, the new path planning algorithm could cover the whole farm field under the minimum effect of wind.

Performance comparison of single and multi-GNSS receivers under agricultural fields in Korea
Md. Shaha Nur Kabir, Ming-Zhang Song, Nam-Seok Sung, Sun-Ok Chung, Yong-Joo Kim, Noboru Noguchi, Soon-Jung Hong
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 9, 1, 27, 35, Elsevier, 01 Jan. 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, Objective of this research was to evaluate the performance of single and multi-GNSS receivers and investigate the different capability under different modes of the multi-GNSS receiver for positioning assessment under stationary and moving conditions in typical Korean agricultural sites such as open field, orchard, and mountainous area. During stationary tests of the single-GNSS receiver (Model: R100, Hemisphere DGPS) with differential correction, the Twice the Distance Root Mean Square values (2DRMS) values were found as 0.162 m, 0.196 m, and 1.720 m in open field, orchard, and mountainous area, respectively. For multi-GNSS receiver (Model: SIGMA-G3T, JAVAD GNSS Inc.) with Precise Point Positioning (PPP) mode, the 2DRMS values were found as 0.077 m, 0.162 m, and 0.929 m for carrier phase differential (RTK) with fixed ambiguities (pd) with QZSS (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System) signal in open field, orchard, and mountainous area, respectively. During the moving tests of the single-GNSS receiver, the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values were found as 0.168 m, 0.221 m, and 1.372 m in open field, orchard, and mountainous area, respectively. For multi-GNSS receiver with PPP mode, the RMSE values were found as 0.152 m, 0.182 m, and 1.13 m for pd with QZSS signal in open field, orchard, and mountainous area, respectively. Number of satellites tracked by the multi-GNSS receiver was greater than the single-GNSS receiver in all cases. This research provides capability and accuracy of a multi-GNSS receiver and comparison with a single-GNSS, which would be helpful for selecting appropriate receivers and methods in various agricultural conditions.

Development and application of a wheel-type robot tractor　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Yang,L., Noguchi, N., Takai,R
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 9, 2, 131, 140, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]

Determination of tire dynamic properties: Application to an agricultural vehicle
Ricardo Ospina, Noboru Noguchi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 9, 1, 123, 130, Elsevier, 01 Jan. 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, This paper describes the methods for estimating a vehicle's dynamic parameters using a Global Positioning System implementing a Real Time Kinematic scheme (RTK-GPS) and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). An RTK-GPS system and an IMU are used to estimate the vehicle's body sideslip angle and then obtain the relation between the tire's lateral forces and slip angles, and also the tire's cornering stiffness. In order to compare the experimental results two vehicle models are described
the bicycle geometric model and the bicycle dynamic model. The method of least squares was applied to the experimental data in order to obtain mathematical expressions that account for the nonlinearities of the system. It is shown that the measurements performed can be used to estimate the tire sideslip and the tire cornering stiffness. The experimental results are consistent to the predictions made by the models, which verifies the potential of this method to determine a nonlinear mathematical model.

Development of Biogas Tractors (Part 1):──Basic Performance in Terms of Engine Power, Torque, and Emission──
TSUKAMOTO Takayuki, JABER Nizar, KIMURA Yoshiaki, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 78, 5, 416, 423, Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese,

Biogas is used in gas engine cogeneration to obtain electricity and heat. However, only the biogas produced is stored in the plant. Hence, we developed dual-fuel biogas tractors that can be operated with biogas and diesel. Their basic performance in the steady state was tested. The results of power take-off shaft (PTO) performance tests showed that tractor operation was stable at all engine speeds and under loads. The maximum engine torque and power in the dual-fuel model were higher than the conventional values by 10%. The maximum fuel replacement rate was 86%. NO_X and CO₂ emissions decreased by 8% and 11%, respectively, in the dual-fuel mode. However, CO and HC emissions increased because excess biogas prevented diesel fuel combustion.

Development of Biogas Tractors (Part 2):──Field Test and Fuel Consumption Performance──
TSUKAMOTO Takayuki, JABER Nizar, KIMURA Yoshiaki, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 78, 5, 424, 431, Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese,

Biogas tractors were developed for agricultural purposes with the aim of partially replacing diesel with biogas. This paper mainly discusses the performance and reduction of fuel consumption of these tractors.

The results showed that dual-fuel operation reduced diesel consumption in all field tests, while realizing the same working efficiency. The maximum decrease in fuel consumption was 73% in hay rake operation. The maximum decrease in fuel replacement rate was 79% in broadcaster operation. Furthermore, by using a dynamometer to determine the actual engine power and load in field tests, we reproduced the engine speed and estimated the engine load. Finally, the fuel consumption performance of the tractors at actual engine speed and power was determined.

Development of a 5DOF robotic arm (RAVebots-1) applied to heavy products harvesting
Ali Roshanianfard, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 49, 16, 155, 160, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, Robotics can play a significant role to increase efficiency and lighten the farmer's load. Despite challenges in the agricultural robotic designs, robots are capable of performing various tasks and changing themselves accordingly, based on specific conditions. To address modern problems in the agricultural field, an agricultural robot is one of the key technologies. Although agricultural robotic is still in the development stage, these particular robots have a bright future ahead. This paper proposes a new 5DOF articulated robotic arm design that would become a solution for heavy crop harvesting like pumpkin and cabbage.
The main design process of the device was conceived using 6 stages of Shigley design process. All components were designed, assembled and analyzed by using Solidworks 2014 in compliance with JIS standards. The parts of the system that had dynamic nature were analyzed manually using standard mechanical formulas. Calculations of the workspace, required joint torque, and coordination of mass center position were developed using standard machine design methods. Denavit-Hartenberg method was used to calculate forward and reverse kinematics. To resolve the torque reduction, components were designed by different material and mass center and were compared together.
Results showed that total torque in Joints number 1, 2. 3, 4 and 5 were 6.15, 257.35, 103.4, 20.2 and 0.1 N. m respectively with a rotational speed range of 15 60 rpm. Changes in the linkage material and servo motor location improved 29.7% similar to 47.7% and 29.7% similar to 68.9% of the total required torque for each joint. The maximum distance covered by the ann was 1640 mm from the 12 and 1830 mm from the attachment point. According to the feedback received from a reverse kinematics equation algorithm, the fundamental operation of the robot arm had an optimal performance. (C) 2016, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multi-temporal Monitoring of Wheat Growth through Correlation Analysis of Satellite Images, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Images with Ground Variable
Mengmeng Du, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 49, 16, 5, 9, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, Satellite remote sensing has been proved to be an effective way of monitoring crop growth status and yield prediction Recently near -ground remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) witnessed wide applications in obtaining field information. In this research, four satellite and eight UAV images were used from early June to the end of July, 2015, which covers two experimental wheat fields; in order to monitor wheat canopy growth status and analyze the correlation among satellite images based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with UAV images based visible-band difference vegetation index (VDVI) and ground variable of grain protein contents. The results of relational analysis of NDVI with sampled wheat grain protein content showed that the NDVI related most to the grain protein content at the later stage of wheat growing season, one week prior to harvesting. And the correlation analysis of NDVI with VDVI showed good consistency at the early stage of wheat growing season, with the coefficient of determination R-2=0.77, in regardless of the wheat varieties. (c) 2016, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of a robot tractor controlled by a human-driven tractor system
Chi Zhang, Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 8, 1, 7, 12, Elsevier, 01 Jan. 2015
English, Scientific journal, A robot tractor controlled by a human-driven tractor system was developed to solve the problem of agriculture labor shortage. In this type of system, a robot does farm work while a human-driven tractor is following and doing a different operation. An RTK-GPS and IMU were mounted on the robot for navigation. A remote control system was developed to assist the human's operation. The results of an experiment using this system showed that by following a robot, the range of lateral errors of the human-driven tractor improved from 0.2 m to 0.15 m. The experiment field is 5.3 ha, and it took 8.7 h to finish tillage and planting, 6.3 h less than that using a single tractor.

Development of a Robot Combine Harvester
Zhang,Z., Noguchi, N., Ishii,K
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 77, 1, 45, 50, 農業食料工学会事務局, 2015, [Peer-reviewed]
English

Development of a Cooperative Working System of a Robot Tractor with a Human-driven Tractor　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Zhang,C, Yang,L, Noguchi,N
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 8, 1, 7, 12, 2015, [Peer-reviewed]

Development and evaluation of a general-purpose electric off-road robot based on agricultural navigation
Yin Xiang, Noboru Noguchi
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, 7, 5, 14, 21, CHINESE ACAD AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING, Oct. 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The aim of this study was to develop a general-purpose electric off-road robot vehicle by using automatic control technologies. The vehicle prototype used in this study was a commercially-purchased electricity utility vehicle that was designed originally for manual operations. A manipulating unit, an automatic steering system and a speed control system were developed and integrated into a CAN-bus network for operating on functions (forward, reverse, park or stop), realizing desired steering angles and maintaining a constant speed, respectively, in the mode of automation. An autonomous navigation system based on RTK-GPS and IMU was used to evaluate the performance of the newly developed off-road robot. Field tests showed that the maximum error in speed control was 0.29 m/s and 0.22 m/s for speed tests and autonomous runs, respectively. The lateral offset was less than 10 cm in terms of straight paths, indicating that the automatic steering control system was of good performance.

An active safety system using two laser scanners for a robot tractor
Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 19, 11577, 11582, IFAC Secretariat, 2014
English, International conference proceedings, A 2D laser scanner was used for obstacle detection for autonomous vehicles for its high accuracy at both indoor and outdoor environment on the measurement of distance. Traditionally, the obstacle detection method was depended on the distance from an object to a laser scanner, and an obstacle was defined if the measured distance was less than a threshold. A shortage of the traditional obstacle detection method for a robot tractor is that a low obstacle cannot be detected when the height of the obstacle is lower than the height of the scanning plane of the 2D laser scanner. In this article, obstacle detection method using two 2D laser scanners is discussed. One laser scanner is mounted at the front and the other is mounted at the rear of the vehicle in order to cover the whole surroundings of the vehicle. The laser scanner was mounted look-at-down in order to detect a low obstacle. A test was carried out at an outdoor environment to verify the developed safety system. The test results indicate the developed system could detect obstacles with accuracy around 10 cm.

Development of a Low-cost IMU by using sensor fusion for attitude angle estimation
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishii
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 19, 4435, 4440, IFAC Secretariat, 2014
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this research was to explore the use of data information of a low-cost IMU to provide an attitude angle with acceptable accuracy for agricultural robot. This work was an attempt to create attitude angle estimation system via sensor fusion method based on a triple gyroscope and a tri-axis accelerometer in this low-cost IMU. The used algorithm processed and integrated the data from the gyroscope and the accelerometer using a mean filter and a Kalman filter. Under this algorithm, the experiment data showed that the estimation precision was improved effectively. It can solve noise jamming, and be especially suitable for the robot which is sensitive to the payload and cost effective.

Development of a human-driven tractor following a robot system
Chi Zhang, Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 19, 11559, 11564, IFAC Secretariat, 2014
English, International conference proceedings, Automated agricultural equipment such as a robot tractor has been developed to solve the problem of agriculture labor force shortage. A human-driven tractor following a robot system is useful for saving time on a large-scale farm. In this kind of system, a robot tractor does farm work while a human-driven tractor is following and doing a different operation. The human operator can control the robot through a controller. To monitor work conditions of the leading robot tractor, four cameras are mounted on the robot tractor, and images from the cameras are sent to the human-driven tractor through a video transmission system. The human operator can check the surroundings of the robot from a monitor. Also, a laser scanner is mounted in the front of the robot for safety. The results of an experiment using the system showed that the precision of the robot tractor, which had an RMS error of about 0.03 m, was better than that of an experienced tractor operator, for which the RMS error was about 0.04 m, while the range of lateral errors of the human-driven tractor improved from 0.25 m to 0.20 m by following the robot.

Development of an unmanned surface vehicle platform for autonomous navigation in paddy field
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Takeshi Yusa
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 19, 11553, 11558, IFAC Secretariat, 2014
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this research was to develop an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) platform for autonomous navigation in the paddy field. The surface vehicle used in this research was a radio controlled air propeller vessel that had been modified into an unmanned surface vehicle platform. A GPS compass system was attached to the top of the USV platform as the navigation system to provide the position and heading angle. The USV platform can autonomously navigate to the predefined navigation map. From the GPS trajectory data of the map-based navigation experiment, the in-system root mean square (RMS) lateral error from the target path was observed to be less than 0.45 m, and the in-system RMS heading error was 4.4 degree or less. The final goal of the research is going to realize the autonomous weeding, intelligent fertilization or paddy growth management based on this USV platform.

Development of a wheel-type robot tractor and its utilization
Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 19, 11571, 11576, IFAC Secretariat, 2014
English, International conference proceedings, This article described the development and utilization of a CAN-bus based robot tractor. A RTK-GPS and an IMU were utilized as a position and a posture sensor for the development of a navigation system. The path planning and navigation control method were described in this article. Three field tests were conducted to show the performance and stability of the robot on straight path, logged path following crop rows and long time work. The RMS value of lateral and heading errors of three tests were 0.05 m and 0.6 degree, 0.02 m and 0.77 degree, 0.04 m and 0.75 degree, respectively. The results revealed the CAN-bus based robot tractor has high and stable navigation accuracy. The accuracy was acceptable for all tests.

Significant wavelengths for prediction of winter wheat growth status and grain yield using multivariate analysis
Vali Rasooli Sharabian, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 7, 1, 14, 21, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, 2014
English, Scientific journal, In order to select significant wavelengths related to winter wheat growth characteristics, field experiments were conducted in three consecutive years. Diffuse reflectance of crop leaves was recorded with other crop variables during growth stages. Multivariate analysis including partial least squares regression (PLSR) and stepwise multiple linear regression (SMLR) procedures were used to determine important wavelengths. The results showed strong relationships between predicted and actual crop variables. The best prediction model built on wavelengths selected by SMLR so that R2, root mean square error (RMSR) and relative error (RE) for the validation dataset were 0.85, 1.56 and 3.64% for SPAD, 0.89, 413 and 6.21% for grain yield, and 0.84, 0.56 and 4.85% for protein content. © 2013, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association.

Development of a Wheel-Type Robot Tractor and its Utilization
Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 47, 3, 11571, 11576, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, This article described the development and utilization of a CAN-bus based robot tractor. A RTK-GPS and an IMU were utilized as a position and a posture sensor for the development of a navigation system. The path planning and navigation control method were described in this article. Three field tests were conducted to show the performance and stability of the robot on straight path, logged path following crop rows and long time work. The RMS value of lateral and heading errors of three tests were 0.05 m and 0.6 degree, 0.02 m and 0.77 degree, 0.04 m and 0.75 degree, respectively. The results revealed the CAN bus based robot tractor has high and stable navigation accuracy. The accuracy was acceptable for all tests.

Development of an Unmanned Surface Vehicle Platform for Autonomous Navigation in Paddy Field
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Takeshi Yusa
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 47, 3, 11553, 11558, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this research was to develop an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) platform for autonomous navigation in the paddy field. The surface vehicle used in this research was a radio controlled air propeller vessel that had been modified into an unmanned surface vehicle platform. A GP S compass system was attached to the top of the USV platform as the navigation system to provide the position and heading angle. The USV platform can autonomously navigate to the predefined navigation map. From the GPS trajectory data of the map based navigation experiment, the in-system root mean square (RMS) lateral error from the target path was observed to be less than 0.45 m, and the in-system RMS heading error was 4.4 degree or less. The final goal of the research is going to realize the autonomous weeding, intelligent fertilization or paddy growth management based on this USV platform.

Development of a Human-driven tractor following a Robot System
Chi Zhang, Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 47, 3, 11559, 11564, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, Automated agricultural equipment such as a robot tractor has been developed to solve the problem of agriculture labor force shortage. A human-driven tractor following a robot system is useful for saving time on a large-scale farm. In this kind of system, a robot tractor does farm work while a human-driven tractor is following and doing a different operation. The human operator can control the robot through a controller. To monitor work conditions of the leading robot tractor, four cameras are mounted on the robot tractor, and images from the cameras are sent to the human-driven tractor through a video transmission system. The human operator can check the surroundings of the robot from a monitor. Also, a laser scanner is mounted in the front of the robot for safety. The results of an experiment using the system showed that the precision of the robot tractor, which had an RMS error of about 0.03 m, was better than that of an experienced tractor operator, for which the RMS error was about 0.04 m, while the range of lateral errors of the human-driven tractor improved from 0.25 m to 0.20 m by following the robot.

Development of a Low-cost IMU by Using Sensor Fusion for Attitude Angle Estimation
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishii
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 47, 3, 4435, 4440, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this research was to explore the use of data information of a low-cost IMU to provide an attitude angle with acceptable accuracy for agricultural robot. This work was an attempt to create attitude angle estimation system via sensor fusion method based on a triple gyroscope and a triaxis accelerometer in this low-cost IMU. The used algorithm processed and integrated the data from the gyroscope and the accelerometer using a mean filter and a Kalman filter. Under this algorithm, the experiment data showed that the estimation precision was improved effectively. It can solve noise jamming, and be especially suitable for the robot which is sensitive to the payload and cost effective.

An Active Safety System Using Two Laser Scanners for a Robot Tractor
Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC PAPERSONLINE, 47, 3, 11577, 11582, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, A 2D laser scanner was used for obstacle detection for autonomous vehicles for its high accuracy at both indoor and outdoor environment on the measurement of distance. Traditionally, the obstacle detection method was depended on the distance from an object to a laser scanner, and an obstacle was defined if the measured distance was less than a threshold. A shortage of the traditional obstacle detection method for a robot tractor is that a low obstacle cannot be detected when the height of the obstacle is lower than the height of the scantling plane of the 2D laser scanner. In this article, obstacle detection method using two 2D laser scanners is discussed. One laser scanner is mounted at the front and the other is mounted at the rear of the vehicle in order to cover the whole surroundings of the vehicle. The laser scanner was mounted look-at-down in order to detect a low obstacle. A test was carried out at an outdoor environment to verify the developed safety system. The test results indicate the developed system could detect obstacles with accuracy around 10 cm.

Development of a Crawler-type Robot Tractor using RTK-GPS and IMU　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Takai,R, Yang,L, Noguchi,N
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 7, 4, 143, 147, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]

Optimization of steering control parameters based on a combine harvester's kinematic model
Ze Zhang, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishii, Liangliang Yang
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 7, 2, 91, 96, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this study was to optimize the control parameters of a robot combine harvester so that it can run along a straight line with minimal oscillation and minimal lateral error. A kinematic model was established by analyzing the relations among steering, control lever angle and performance of the vehicle. Based on the kinematic model, optimizations of a steering controller were conducted so as to obtain optimized control parameters. The optimized control parameters were verified by field experiments. In a stable state, the RMS value of lateral error was 0.025 m with a maximum of 0.066 m. Thus, the effectiveness of the method for optimization of control parameters of the robot combine harvester was verified. © 2014, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights.

Development of a Robot Combine Harvester　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Zhang,Z., Noguchi, N., Ishii,K
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 77, 1, 45, 50, 2014, [Peer-reviewed]

Development of a target recognition and following system for a field robot
Xiang Yin, Noboru Noguchi, Jongmin Choi
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 98, 17, 24, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Oct. 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this study was to develop a target recognition and following system for a field robot. The platform used in this study was an electric vehicle that had been modified into an automatic vehicle. A 3D camera was attached in the front of the vehicle to deliver depth and grayscale information on the environment. The degrees of correspondence between objects present in consecutive frames were calculated using their spatial descriptors and grayscale features. A correspondence assigner was designed to recognize the same objects in consecutive frames, and their locations could be acquired at the same time. Based on a pursuit strategy, an appropriate steering angle was calculated for the robot vehicle to move towards the target. A PID controller was used to determine appropriate vehicle speed for maintaining a certain distance from the target. Field tests were conducted to evaluate robustness and performance of the system. Results showed that the robot vehicle was correctly and effectively guided to follow the target while preventing collisions with disturbances. RMS errors were 1.0 m and 1.3 degrees in terms of space and deflection angle, respectively, when following a target that moved in a straight line at an average speed of 1.1 m/s. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Review enhanced adaptability of tilling robot (2nd report)* - Execution of various operations by tilling robot
Yosuke Matsuo, Osamuo Yukumoto, Satoshi Yamamoto, Noboru Noguchi, Yoshiyuki Hara
Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly, 47, 2, 153, 164, Apr. 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, A tilling robot capable of unmanned rotary tilling with the XNAV navigation system was examined to improve and expand the adaptability of the robot operation. Firstly, as an effective and safe method of using the robot, we proposed a method whereby one operator manually operated a conventional tractor while engaged in the unmanned operation of a robot tractor. As a result of the rotary tilling test, to which the use method was applied, the robot operation was performed without trouble, and one operator could perform the operation with efficiency about 1.8 times superiorto manned operation. Secondly, as an application to farm work other than rotary tilling, operation software for seeding and soil paddling was created based on operation software for rotary tilling. From the results of robot wheat seeding field tests, it was proved that the operation could be successfully performed without trouble and that the conventional two-person work could be done by one operator. The robot soil paddling was also successfully performed with efficient operation paths compared to manned operation.

Development of a robot combine harvester for wheat and paddy harvesting
Ze Zhang, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishii, Liangliang Yang, Chi Zhang
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 1, 1, IFAC Secretariat, 2013
English, International conference proceedings, Currently, the number of farmers in Japan is decreasing at an especially high speed. In addition, the average age of the farmers available is increasing. In this trend, it is entirely possible that several decades later, the self-sufficiency rate of agricultural product in Japan will drop sharply. To solve this problem, one possible solution should be to employ agricultural robot in actual use, including robot tractor, robot combine harvester and so on. Recognizing the importance and urgency of developing such agricultural robots, this study proposed and developed a robot combine harvester. This robot relies on an AGI GPS receiver and IMU for position and posture data. It is controlled via CAN BUS. In this study, its accuracy was tested, and it shows that this combine harvester can be applied in Honshu and Hokkaido area of Japan with this accuracy.

Development of robot tractor associating with human-drive tractor for farm work
Chi Zhang, Liangliang Yang, Ze Zhang, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 1, 1, IFAC Secretariat, 2013
English, International conference proceedings, A single agricultural robot was developed to solve the problem of labor shortage
however, it cannot meet the demands as the farmland is becoming larger and larger. This article focused on a robot tractor associating with human-drive tractor system. A robot tractor is doing farm operation while a human-drive tractor following and doing different operation. Human can adjust the parameters of the robot by a microcontroller. To ensure safety, four cameras were mounted around the robot tractor, and the images of the cameras were sent through wireless video transmission system. Human can keep a watchful eye on the surroundings of the robot tractor. The results of the system indicated that the performance of the robot tractor behaves better than an experienced farmer driver, in the mean while the efficiency is increased compared with a single robot system.

Attitude angle estimation for agricultural robot navigation based on sensor fusion with a low-cost imu
Yufei Liu, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishii
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 1, 1, IFAC Secretariat, 2013
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this research was to explore the use of data information of a low-cost IMU to provide an attitude angle with acceptable accuracy for agricultural robot navigation. This work was an attempt to create attitude angle estimation system via sensor fusion method based on gyroscope and accelerometer in this low-cost IMU. The used algorithm processed and integrated the data from triple gyroscope and tri-axis accelerometer using a low-pass filter and Kalman filter. Under this algorithm, experiment data showed that the estimation precision was improved effectively. It can solve noise jamming, and realize attitude angle optimal estimation.

Development of a laser scanner-based navigation system for a combine harvester
Jongmin Choi, Xiang Yin, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 4, 1, 103, 108, 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this study was to develop an autonomous navigation system for a combine harvester using a laser scanner. The laser scanner was attached to the top of the harvester cabin through a pan tilt unit that tilted the laser scanner in the vertical plane to obtain 3D information on the field. A field profile was modeled by investigating the spatial distribution of range data measured by the laser scanner in a soybean field. A crop row localization method used a cross correlation algorithm to calculate the relative position and direction between the vehicle and crop rows. Field experiments were conducted in a row-planted soybean field during harvesting season. Results showed that the combine harvester had RMS errors of 0.02 m and 0.8 degrees in terms of lateral offset and heading deflection, respectively, in detecting the soybean row localized between cut and uncut areas under static conditions. The corresponding RMS errors were 0.07 m and 3 degrees when the combine harvester was autonomously guided to perform soybean harvesting along crop rows at a speed of 0.97 m/s in the field. Copyright © 2013 IFAC.

Development of a target following system for a field robot
Xiang Yin, Noboru Noguchi
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 4, 1, 109, 114, 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this study was to develop a target following system for a field robot. The platform used in this study was an electric vehicle that had been modified into a robot vehicle. A 3D camera was attached to the front of the vehicle to deliver depth and grayscale information on the environment. Based on a pursuit strategy, an appropriate steering angle was calculated for the robot vehicle to move towards the target. A PID controller was used to determine appropriate vehicle speed for maintaining a certain distance from the target. Field tests were conducted to evaluate robustness and performance of the newly developed system. Results showed that the robot vehicle was effectively guided to follow the target. RMS errors were 1.0 m and 1.3 degrees in terms of space and deflection angle, respectively, when following a target that moved in a straight line at an average speed of 1.1 m/s. Copyright © 2013 IFAC.

Development of a laser scanner-based navigation system for a combine harvester　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Choi,J, Yin,X, Yang,L, Noguchi,N
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 7, 1, 7, 13, 2013, [Peer-reviewed]

Optimal vegetation indices for winter wheat growth status based on multi-Spectral reflectance
Vali Rasooli Sharabian, Noboru Noguchi, Kazunobu Ishi
Environmental Control in Biology, 51, 3, 105, 112, 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, In order to select appropriate vegetation indices for winter wheat, field experiments with four levels of N-fertilizer (0, 30, 60, and 90 kg ha -1) in two repetitions were conducted for three years. Hyper-spectral reflectance data using a portable field spectroradiometer (351 to 2,500 nm) were recorded from 10 am to 2 pm under cloudless conditions at two different growth stages of winter wheat. All two-band and three-band combinations of several vegetation indices were subsequently calculated in an algorithm for determining linear regression analysis against SPAD value, protein content, and grain yield. R square matrices were used to make contour plots and 3-D scatters. Using overlaying in analysis tools of ArcMap the between first and second year results, a number of common hot spots with strong correlations were revealed. The selected hot spots were validated with the dataset of the third year to choose the best vegetation indices for crop variable estimations.

Discrimination of land use patterns in remote sensing image data using minimum distance algorithm and watershed algorithm
Baofeng Su, Noboru Noguchi
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 6, 2, 48, 53, Elsevier B.V., 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, This paper describes a new method for extracting the agricultural land use pattern around the Miyajimanuma inland wetland based on remote sensing imagery. A land parcel and particle swarm optimization (PSO) K-means-based minimum distance classification (MDC) (LP-PSOK-MDC) method was developed. This method includes three steps: 1) considering the diversity of crop planting and growth state, a training sample pre-classification-based MDC method was developed
2) the land parcels information was extracted by using watershed transform algorithm
finally, 3) pixels in the same land parcel were re-classified. Results of the study suggest that using this method the classification result was easily up to 96 %, much better than results obtained by using traditional supervised classification methods such as MDC and unsupervised classification method.

Evaluation of an Active Remote Sensor for Monitoring Winter Wheat Growth Status
RASOOLI Sharabian Vali, NOGUCHI Noboru, HAN-YA Issei, ISHII Kazunobu
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 6, 3, 118, 127, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, The usefulness of a ground-based sensor embedded on tractor for monitoring the growth of winter wheat using a two plant nutrition active sensors (CropSpec) and RTK-GPS was investigated in this study. In order to consider the reliability of the results, the winter wheat was cultivated in farm land of Hokkaido University. Four levels of N fertilizer were applied to make differences in crop conditions, and growth information was acquired at four growth stages. A strong correlation (R² > 0.70) for Nitrogen Sufficiency Index (S1 value) and ground truth data was found in the second stage of data collection. Also, a strong relationship (R² > 0.90) between in-season estimation (INSE) of S1 value and other vegetation indices acquired using a spectroradiometer as a passive sensor demonstrated good performance of CropSpec. However, for diagnosis of crop growth condition for variable rate application, use of the S1 value without elimination of different measurement times is recommended.

Development of an Obstacle Avoidance System for a Field Robot using a 3D Camera
YIN Xiang, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu
Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food, 6, 2, 41, 47, Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association, 2013, [Peer-reviewed]
English, The aim of this study was to develop an obstacle avoidance system using a 3D camera. A noise filtering algorithm was used to detect corrupted pixels and a background removal method was used to distinguish obstacles from the background. A clustering algorithm based on a 2D histogram back-projected obstacle pixels onto the ground plane for image segmentation and analysis. Experiments showed that this system had a maximum error of 10 cm and an RMS error of 5.6 cm for position accuracy under static conditions and an RMS error of 7.1 cm in distance detection under moving conditions. Field tests showed that the developed system could effectively detect obstacles in real-time.

Human detection for a robot tractor using omni-directional stereo vision
Liangliang Yang, Noboru Noguchi
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 89, 116, 125, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Nov. 2012, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, It is critical to detect and identify obstacles for safe operation of robot tractors. This study focused on human detection using an omni-directional stereo vision (OSV). The Lucas-Kanade optical flow detection method was used to detect human in a panoramic image. A 3D panoramic image that was reconstructed from stereo rectified images using the sum of squared differences (SSDs) method was used to locate the position of a human. To evaluate the performance of the developed human detection method, two RTK-GPSs were used to investigate the accuracy of the detection method under stationary and motion conditions of a robot tractor. The results of field experiments indicated that a human could be detected successfully under both given conditions in the daytime. The RMS error of measured distance was less than half a meter compared with the reference distance measured by the RTK-GPSs. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Enhanced Adaptability of Tilling Robot (Initial Report) - Outline of a Tilling Robot and Enhanced Adaptability of Unmanned Operation -
Yosuke Matsuo, Osamu Yukumoto, Noboru Noguchi
JARQ-JAPAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY, 46, 4, 295, 303, JAPAN INT RESEARCH CENTER AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, Oct. 2012, [Peer-reviewed]
English, The tilling robot mainly comprises: a robot vehicle called ROBOTRA, which is remodeled to control parts of commercially available tractors automatically, a navigation system called XNAV, which detects and outputs robot positioning information using an auto-tracking type surveying device, and a controller with read operation software to execute path planning and control the robot vehicle. The robot has ability almost equivalent to that of customary manned-driven tractors and can perform unmanned rotary tilling on a rectangular field. To improve its adaptability during unmanned operation, we remodeled it so that it could perform path operations differing from customary rotary tilling and performed field tests. We proposed two different path operation methods: "diagonal operation"; performing returning straight operations diagonally against the longer side of the field; and "round operation"; performing straight operations parallel to the four sides in the entire field area, and developed a software package for the same. Following field tests using the software, we confirmed that favorable unmanned operation could be achieved through both methods.

Development of Robot Tractor
松尾陽介, 行本修, 山本聡史, 野口伸
農業機械化研究所研究報告, 0, 41, 96P, 88, 生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構農業機械化研究所, Mar. 2012, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, ロボットトラクタ(以下,ロボット)は,市販トラクタの各部を自動制御できるように改造したロボット車両と,自動追尾型測量装置を用いてロボットの位置情報や方位情報を検出・出力する航法システムXNAV,および経路計画やロボット車両の制御を行う作業ソフトを読み込んだコントローラにより主に構成される。ロボットは,慣行の有人運転作業と同程度の作業能率,作業精度で矩形ほ場のロータリ耕作業を無人で行う性能を有している。ロボットの適応性拡大や効率的な利活用方法の研究として,ロータリ耕作業とは異なる経路による作業や播種作業,代かき作業を行える作業ソフトの開発,及びロボット作業と有人運転作業を同時並行で行う2台同時作業法の提案を行い,ほ場作業試験によりそれらの開発ソフトの性能や作業法の効果等を確認した。2台同時作業法は,オペレータ1人で従来型トラクタによる慣行作業の約1.8倍の能率でほ場作業が行え,ロボットを有効かつ安全に活用する作業法と評価できた。開発したロボットの性能は,慣行の有人運転作業と同程度の作業能率,作業精度で各種の農作業が行えることを確認し,省力効果や取扱い性,信頼性,作業安全の点についても実用利用できるレベルに近いものとすることができた。

Agricultural land use information extraction in Miyajimanuma wetland area based on remote sensing imagery
Baofeng Su, Noboru Noguchi
Environmental Control in Biology, 50, 3, 277, 287, 2012
English, Scientific journal, The availability of agricultural land use information allows decision makers and managers to establish short-term and to long-term plans for land conservation and sustainable use. The objective of this study was to develop a method for extraction of agricultural land use information based on remote sensing imagery. By combining particle swarm optimization (PSO), k-means clustering algorithm and minimum distance classifier, a PSO-k-means-based minimum distance classifier for agricultural land use classification was developed. Crop planting information was collected and divided into five classes: water bodies, paddy fields, bean fields, wheat fields and others (windbreak, roads, rare areas, and buildings, etc.). K-means, a widely used algorithm in pattern recognition for unsupervised classification, became a part of supervised classification by using PSO to find the optimal initial position vectors in a training sample pretreatment process. The optimal cluster of each subclass was finally used for minimum distance classification. The results obtained from Miyajimanuma wetland land use information extraction showed that merely using a small feature space composed of the first three principal components of a SPOT 5 image enabled classification accuracy of 93%.

Determination of Ultrasonic Sensor Ability for Use as Guidance Sensors of Mobile Robots
Hassan Masoudi, Reza Alimardani, Mahmoud Omid, Seyed Saeid Mohtasebi, Noboru Noguchi
SENSORS AND MATERIALS, 24, 3, 115, 126, MYU, SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING DIVISION, 2012, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, In this study, we have evaluated the ability of ultrasonic sensors to produce guidance signals for greenhouse application robots. First, one high-quality ultrasonic sensor was selected and some basic experiments were carried out. Experimental results showed that with predetermined internal parameters, the accuracy of the selected sensor was good for distances between 15 and 215 cm and angles between 0 and 30 degrees. The maximum width of view of each sensor was 17.15 cm for flat surfaces and 33.20 cm for round surfaces. From these results, the final configuration of sensors around the robot was determined. With a designed averaging algorithm, it was possible to calculate the averages of orientation and position with high accuracy from ultrasonic sensor outputs. Also, from comparison with data from reference sensors, the maximum error and root mean square error (RMSE) for orientation and position were 11.23 degrees, 4.036 degrees and 3 cm, 0.714 cm, respectively.

Development of unmanned airboat for water-quality mapping
Yutaka Kaizu, Munetaka Iio, Hiroyuki Yamada, Noboru Noguchi
BIOSYSTEMS ENGINEERING, 109, 4, 338, 347, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, Aug. 2011, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, An unmanned airboat for mapping the water quality of shallow (<1 m) mire pools where aquatic weeds flourish was developed. A differential global positioning system receiver and a global positioning system compass were used as navigation sensors. The airboat was designed for automatic operation. Using the boat, parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, electrical conductivity, turbidity and chlorophyll-a of the water were measured in a 26-ha mire pool in Hokkaido, Japan. To determine the appropriate sampling-grid size, 10-m spacing linear sampling was conducted, and the spatial variability of the mire pool characteristics was determined using a semivariogram. Results from the spherical model fit to the empirical semivariogram revealed spatial fluctuations in the water-quality parameters on the scale of 100-140 m. Because the size of the grid must be smaller than this scale, a second survey of water samples in the pool was carried out using a grid size of 40 m x 40 m. At each target point, a water-quality sensor unit was lowered from the boat. The survey of the entire grid area took approximately 231 min, during which time 130 points were sampled. The precision of the sampling points was within 2.6 m. The maximum speed and yaw rate of the airboat were 1.2 m s(-1) and 48 degrees s(-1), respectively. The resulting maps provided fine-scale distribution of water quality. (C) 2011 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of a low-cost attitude sensor for agricultural vehicles
Akira Mizushima, Kazunobu Ishii, Noboru Noguchi, Yousuke Matsuo, Renfu Lu
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 76, 2, 198, 204, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, May 2011, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this research was to develop a low-cost attitude sensor for agricultural vehicles. The attitude sensor was composed of three vibratory gyroscopes and two inclinometers. A sensor fusion algorithm was developed to estimate tilt angles (roll and pitch) by least-squares method. In the algorithm, the drift error of the gyroscopes was estimated using the inclinometers. In addition to tilt angles, the attitude sensor also estimated the absolute heading angle and position with inclination error correction by integrating a GPS. Tests were conducted on a flat field, a sloping ground and a bumpy road. Results showed that the attitude sensor was able to estimate the roll angle with the maximum root mean square error of 0.43 degrees, the pitch angle with 0.61 degrees and the heading angle with 0.64 degrees. Moreover, the attitude sensor dramatically improved the positioning accuracy from 25.9 cm to 3.0 cm in the sloping ground test and from 8.4 cm to 3.7 cm in the bumpy road test. The proposed technology used in the attitude sensor will help to develop advanced agricultural applications. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Satellite and aerial remote sensing for production estimates and crop assessment
Issei Han-ya, Kazunobu Ishii, Noboru Noguchi
Environmental Control in Biology, 48, 2, 51, 58, Biotron Institute, 2010, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this study was to develop a reliable field monitoring system combining helicopter-based and satellite-based remote sensing. In this research, multi-spectral imageries were used that was taken by SPOT5, QuickBird-2 and helicopter. These imageries were synchronously taken. As every vision covers the same wavelength range and takes same objects, the color information of the satellite and helicopter images would be integrated. The relation of the information on NDVI was examined. There was a high correlation between satellite-based NDVI and helicopter-based NDVT, The R2 value was 0.81 between helicopter-based NDVI and Quickbird-2 satellite-based NDVI. Therefore, it was possible to do revision of the color information on the relative satellite imageries in using helicopter imageries. Using these color information, the field status (moisture content of wheat ear) can be estimated. Combined Helicopter-based NDVI and satellite-based NDVI, it became possible to estimate the wide range in high accuracy and high efficiency.

Automatic guidance system in real-time orchard application (part 2) Development of low-cost and small scale electronic robot vehicle for orchard application
Barawid Jr.,O.C, Noguchi,N
Journal of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery, 72, 3, 243, 250, 農業機械学会事務局, 2010, [Peer-reviewed]
English

The Method of Controlling Biogas Input in Biogas-Diesel Dual-Fuel Engine
WAKABAYASHI Sohei, JABER Nizar, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 72, 3, 268, 275, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2010, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Biogas made from organic waste, has been used for various applications, including engines. Feeding biogas into the intake manifold of compression ignition engine reduces diesel consumption from one side but on the other side, it increases CO emission and BSHC (Break Specific Heat Consumption) during low loads. This research studies the characteristics of dual-fuel tractor engines using different biogas control methods. Biogas feeding was controlled using 3D-look-up tables optimized for three different objectives. Engine performances as well as emissions were measured and a field test simulation was made.
The dual-fuel engines have almost same power and torque characteristics as diesel engines. Emission tests results showed that the optimized biogas supply maps were attained the research objectives. The best BSHC curve gave the lowest energy consumption, and diesel consumption was minimized by best reduction map. Field simulation test estimated possible results of actual operations powered by the dual-fuel tractor.

Estimation of moisture content of wheat ear using satellite and helicopter imagery
半谷一晴, 石井一暢, 野口 伸
Papers on environmental information science, 23, 155, 160, 環境情報科学センター, 2009, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese

衛星測位システムと地理情報システムを用いた牧草地の空間情報化と利用(第1報)
速水敦郎, 姜 太煥, 海津 裕, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 71, 5, 60, 66, 2009, [Peer-reviewed]

ナタネを原料としたバイオディーゼル燃料の小型ディーゼル機関への適用
西野邦彦, 宮田雄介, 澁谷幸憲, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 71, 5, 88, 94, 2009, [Peer-reviewed]

Development of Intelligent system for field robot in grass land (Part 2)
Teimourlou,R.F, Noguchi,N
Journal of Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery, 71, 4, 43, 51, 2009, [Peer-reviewed]

The development of control algorithm for the dual-fuel engine of a biogas tractor(Part 2)
Jaber,N, Walabayashi,S, Tsukamoto,T, Noguchi,N
Journal of Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery, 71, 4, 74, 82, 2009, [Peer-reviewed]

Improvement of Adaptability and Reliability of Tilling Robot (Part 3) : Various Unmanned Operation with Tilling Robot
MATSUO Yosuke, YUKUMOTO Osamu, YAMAMOTO Satoshi, NOGUCHI Noboru, HARA Yoshiyuki
Journal of JSAM, 71, 3, 85, 93, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2009, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Tilling robot can perform unmanned rotary tilling at a practical level. At first, to utilize the robot effectively, we suggested an application in which one operator manually operates the usual tractor while causing the robot to perform unmanned operation. Second, to apply the robot to other work, operation software for "seeding" and "soil puddling" were made based on software for rotary tilling. In a field test of the first application, one operator could perform tilling efficiently, approximately 1.8 times the manual operation. In field tests of the second application, one operator could execute wheat seeding precisely with saving labor. The unmanned soil puddling could be performed more efficiently than by conventional manual operation.

Automatic Guidance System in Real-time Orchard Application (Part 1) : A Novel Research on Coconut Field Application Using Laser Scanner
BARAWID Oscar C. Jr., FARROKHI TEIMOURLOU Rahman, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu
Journal of JSAM, 70, 6, 76, 84, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
English, The research objective was to develop an automatic guidance system in a real-time coconut field application using a laser scanner. Seven methods were used in this research, data and information gathering, tree row recognition using Hough transform, masking method to get the ROI (region-of-interest), simulated coconut environment, SMA (simple moving average), steering control algorithm, and experimental test runs. This research dealt with the recognition of tree rows as a straight line, to be followed by the robot tractor in real-time coconut field straight path navigation.

Drafting of Field Map Using Image by Tilted Image Sensor with Unmanned Helicopter
YOKOBORI Jun, NIWA Katsuhisa, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 70, 5, 92, 100, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, This study aims at improving the sensing efficiency of field information by reducing the number of required images. Single whole field image by tilted image sensor is the best method. The possibility of image acquisition by changing the tilt angle of sensor was therefore investigated. The acquired images were transformed to ground coordinates with a projective transformation. Then, the wheat logging map was generated as one of crop growth maps.
The results suggested that the adopted projective transformation using four corner points on the field was effective for geometrical transformation. It was concluded that the wheat logging map generated by the discriminate function highly coincided with the actual wheat logging situation.

Development of Intelligent System for Field Robot in Grass Land (Part 1) : Hay bale detection using an omnidirectional camera
FARROKHI TEIMOURLOU Rahman, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 70, 5, 69, 76, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
English, In path planning of autonomous agricultural vehicles, obstacles detection and identification, and taking appropriate collision avoidance measures are critical for safe operation. As such, the objectives of this research are to detect the hay bales in an image, and to estimate the position of a hay bale with an omnidirectional camera. Approximately 90% of bales within the 40-m maximum detection distance could be identified using developed image processing technique. Then, the estimation of hay bale's position was further improved based on local discriminate analysis. The estimation of the hay bales distance from the camera generated a root mean squares (RMS) error of 1.1m; it was concluded that this accuracy was more than sufficient to enable the autonomous navigation of a robot tractor in the meadow.

The Development of Control Algorithm for the Dual-Fuel Engine of a Biogas Tractor (Part 1) : Basic Engine Data and Prototype Algorithm
JABER Nizar, TSUKAMOTO Takayuki, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 70, 3, 97, 105, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Using biogas to partially replace diesel fuel in agriculture tractors seems a good solution to reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants. For this reason, a research project to convert a tractor to dual-fuel operation was initiated; this paper's specific aim was to develop a control algorithm feeding biogas to the engine's intake manifold. The effect of biogas addition on engine performance, focusing on break specific heat consumption and fuel replacement rates, was first studied. Then several load estimation methods were assessed and the Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor was chosen as a main load detector. Finally, a prototype algorithm was built upon an engine control unit and was tested. The algorithm was able to change biogas flow with engine speed and load, without knock and misfire.

Improvement of Adaptability and Reliability of Tilling Robot (Part 2) : Improvement of Adaptability of Unmanned Operation
MATSUO Yosuke, YUKUMOTO Osamu, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 70, 3, 82, 88, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Tilling Robot can perform unmanned rotary tilling at a practical level. To improve the robot's adaptability to a variety of fields and operations, the operation overlap width and the path sequence were made variable in the unmanned operation procedure. New procedures of "diagonal operation", in which the robot returns in a straight path diagonal to the field orientation, and "round operation", in which the robot operates the whole field in straight paths parallel to each of the four field borders, have been discussed, and their operation software has been developed. Field tests confirmed that the unmanned operations with these procedures were successful.

Acquisition of Field Information Using a Robot Tractor (Part 2) : Topographical Measurement Using Laser Scanner
KANG Tae-Hwan, YOKOTA Masahiko, ISHII Kazunobu, KAIZU Yutaka, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 70, 3, 65, 73, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, This research used the laser scanner mounted on the robot tractor to gather terrain information of a field, aiming to develop the new-mode field surveying system with high efficiency and high accuracy. The mounted laser scanner was scanning within 4, 8, and 12m-width from the center of the tractor, when the robot tractor was autonomously run on navigation paths with 2m space in the field. The vehicle locations and terrain information were simultaneously measured and recorded. In the case of scanning 4m-width from the tractor center line it has an average error of 4.3cm; for 8m-width the average error was 5.6cm; and for 12m-width the average error was 5.0cm. Therefore, it was concluded that the developed system has high accuracy and high efficiency for surveying the topography of the field.

Improvement of Adaptability and Reliability of Tilling Robot (Part 1) : Assurance of Reliability and Safety of Unmanned Operation
MATSUO Yosuke, YUKUMOTO Osamu, NOGUCHI Noboru, HAMADA Yasuyuki
Journal of JSAM, 70, 2, 104, 112, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Functions of self-diagnosis and abnormality alarming were added to the Tilling Robot employing the XNAV navigation system to assure the reliability and the safety of unmanned operation. The self-diagnosis function confirms the normality of the navigation data acquisition and the robot's setting and actions before unmanned operation. The abnormality alarming function checks the states of the navigation data acquisition and the robot's operation during unmanned operation. When the self-diagnosis or the abnormality alarming function detects any abnormalities, correction and recovery to normal states are accomplished with man-robot communications. These functions were confirmed to operate as designed by the test with abnormal states.

Characteristics of Exhaust Emission during Dual-fuel Operation with Biogas
TSUKAMOTO Takayuki, JABER Nizar, WAKABAYASHI Souhei, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery, 70, 2, 113, 119, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Biogas generated from the digestion of organic wastes has been regarded as a potential fuel for various applications, many of them involving engines. This research studies the effect of feeding Biogas into the intake manifold of a single cylinder diesel engine, concentrating on the emissions. In fact, a four (4) kW single cylinder diesel engine with 0.309L displacement was run on diesel alone, and then fed three biogas rates (5, 10 and 15L/min) with three different methane concentrations of approximately 100%, 60% and 45%. The concentrations of nitrogen oxides, unburned hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in exhaust gas were measured while smoke were estimated using an opacity meter.
The effect of adding pure methane (100%) into the engine conformed to studies dealing with CNG-diesel engines. Decreased smoke and nitrogen oxides emissions were indeed observed along an increase in carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons.
In terms of emissions, the biogas injection into the engine caused higher unburned hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide levels in exhaust gases; it also reduced nitrogen oxides and smoke. Due to the higher hydrogen concentration in methane as compared to diesel, the carbon dioxide emission was slightly decreased. Interestingly, since the carbon dioxide resulting from methane burning recycles into the biomass, the greenhouse warming effect of engine operation is reduced by more than half.
This research proved that biogas injection into diesel engine not only reduces diesel consumption, but also limits environment pollution by decreasing greenhouse gases.

Estimation of Wheat Ear Moisture Content Using Geographic Information System
YOKOBORI J.
Journal of Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery, 70, 1, 55, 64, 2008, [Peer-reviewed]

Correction of low-altitude thermal images applied to estimating soil water status
R. Sugiura, N. Noguchi, K. Ishii
BIOSYSTEMS ENGINEERING, 96, 3, 301, 313, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, Mar. 2007, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, A system based on a thermal camera was developed for monitoring soil water status. This study used a thermal camera to take images of a field from a low-altitude helicopter. Thermal infrared energy captured by cameras tends to include errors because of atmospheric effects. This means that the image must be corrected for atmospheric transmissivity. The transmissivity can be determined from the ambient temperature, the humidity and the distance between the target object and the sensor. A method for correcting the image was developed using a principle of thermal imaging. The imaging accuracy was improved by the correction method. Remote-sensing experiments using an unmanned helicopter were conducted at an agricultural field. The experimental field was a paddy field with uniform soil quality, and the images of bare soil in the field were obtained at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on the same day. The correlation between the thermal image temperature and soil water content was evaluated. The determination coefficient between water content and temperature at 10 a.m. was 0.69 and that at 3 p.m. was 0.64. The difference in temperature between the two images was examined. The determination coefficient between water content and temperature difference was 0.42. Finally, a map of ground surface water content was generated using the captured image obtained at 10 a.m. The thermal imagery was found to be useful in determining within-field variability in ground surface soil moisture status. (c) 2006 IAgrE. All rights reserved Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Development of an autonomous navigation system using a two-dimensional laser scanner in an orchard application
Oscar C. Barawid, Akira Mizushima, Kazunobu Ishii, Noboru Noguchi
BIOSYSTEMS ENGINEERING, 96, 2, 139, 149, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, Feb. 2007, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this study was to develop an automatic guidance system capable of navigating an autonomous vehicle travelling between tree rows in a real-time application. The study focused solely on straight line recognition of the tree rows using a laser scanner as a navigation sensor. A 52 kW agricultural tractor was used as the platform on which the laser scanner was mounted. A Hough transform was used as the algorithm to recognise the tree row. An auto-regression method eliminated the white Gaussian noise in the laser scanner data. A calibration method was used to select the offset position of the laser scanner and to correct the heading and lateral error evaluation. An appropriate speed for tractor was also determined. By obtaining an accuracy of 0.11 m lateral error and 1-5 degrees heading error, it was possible to navigate the robot tractor autonomously between the orchard row crops. (c) 20,06 IAgrE. All rights reserved Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Literature Review of Recent Research on Biogas and its Usage in Diesel Engines
JABER Nizar, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 69, 1, 89, 98, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Jan. 2007
English, Farm based waste digestion plants return higher profit if the emanating methane (CH₄) rich biogas is purified and used in agricultural vehicles, as it is used to generate heat and electricity. For this reason, ignition process of diesel engines, the prime movers in farms, was thoroughly reviewed because it directly influences the resulting toxic emissions. Methane, coming from natural gas or biogas, when fed into these engines along with diesel, was found to reduce nitrogen oxides and particulate matter but increased knocking at high loads and misfire at light loads. Several solutions have been studied all over the world and some reached the market stage; however many challenges still face the advance of this technology.

Development of a Calibration Method for 2-dimensional Laser Scanner Mounted on an Automated Vehicle
BARAWID Oscar C. Jr., ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 69, 1, 59, 67, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2007, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of this study is to develop a calibration method to get the exact position of the 2-dimensional laser scanner mounted at the front of an automated vehicle from a reference coordinate system before the automatic navigation in an orchard application. The research is limited only in calibrating a 2-dimensional laser scanner that gathers distance and angle data of the objects in front of it. The methods used in this research are Hough transform, Euler rotation theorem and LSM (least squares method). The calibration results identified the exact attachment position of the laser scanner with respect to the vehicle coordinates. Finally, field test runs for autonomous guidance with developed calibration was conducted to confirm the travel accuracy improvement. The accuracy of both lateral and heading error for calibrated sensor was higher than run of subjected calibration.

Aquisition of Field Information Using a Robot Tractor (Part 1)
KANG Tae-Hwan, SIRAMIZU Hirokazu, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 69, 3, 51, 58, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2007, [Peer-reviewed]
The objective of this research is to develop a field improvement based on methodology for working chracteristics on harvesting, and GIS maps using terrain information. To generate a GIS map based on the working chracteristics on harvesting and terrain information, location of the field is essential; therefore a real time kinematical global positioning system (RTK-GPS) was used to provide terrain information and also the vehicle's absolute positions. An inertial measurement unit (IMU) was used to provide posture (yaw, pitch and roll) of the tractor. The system was built on a robot tractor modified a 56kW tractor. As the result, the area where work characteristics have to be improved was identified automatically by the discriminant analysis using explanation variable of synthetic vector and inclination angls.

Innovations for Food Production and Environment by Integrating Agricultural Science with Engineering
Noguchi Noboru
tits, 11, 2, 38, 41, Japan Science Support Foundation, 2006
Japanese

A Study on Application Rate Control of Boom Sprayer and Autonomous Spraying System
HARA Yoshiyuki, TAKENAKA Hideyuki, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu
Journal of JSAM, 68, 2, 88, 93, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2006, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Boom sprayer is usually used in Hokkaido for chemical application of upland crops. We developed the application rate control system of boom sprayer in proportion to working speed by using RTK-GPS and the flow rate sensor. And an automatic boom opening and closing system, which works at every start and end of spraying was also developed for autonomous spraying. Using this sprayer and the robot tractor equipped with RTK-GPS and CAN-BUS, we did the verification of autonomous spraying system in sugar beet field. The autonomous running of tractor, application control system and boom control system of sprayer was smoothly activated. Thus, this system can enable an autonomous spraying.

Crop Status Sensing System by Multi-Spectral Imaging Sensor (Part 2) : Wheat Growth Estimation and GIS Map Generation
SUGIURA Ryo, FUKAGAWA Tomohisa, HARA Yoshiyuki, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 68, 2, 42, 49, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2006, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The main objective of this research is to develop a remote sensing system that can determine crop status using a multi-spectral imaging sensor (MSIS). To detect crop information, high image quality is required under various ambient light conditions. Useful data was obtained by adjusting CCD gain before sensing and controlling exposure time for each capture. The unplanted ridges in the image makes the error of the vegetation cover rate. Therefore, the algorithm which can automatically segment the unplanted ridge area was developed. In this research, the images were obtained at flag leaves stage and flowering stage. The crop statuses were estimated by the multiple-linear regression of the sensing data and ground-truth data (SPAD value, crop height, stem number, dry weight, nitrogen contents and yield). As a result of the analysis, the coefficients of determination at the flag leaves stage were 0.72 (SPAD value), 0.59 (crop height), 0.58 (stem umber), 0.59 (dry weight), 0.62 (nitrogen contents) and 0.61 (yield). The coefficients of determination of SPAD value, nitrogen contents and yield at the flowering stage were 0.72, 0.62 and 0.54. However, the other parameters didn't show any correlation. Finally, the GIS maps regarding crop status were generated for the experimental field.

Crop Status Sensing System by Multi-Spectral Imaging Sensor (Part 1) : Image Processing and Paddy Field Sensing
ISHII Kazunobu, SUGIURA Ryo, FUKAGAWA Tomohisa, NOGUCHI Noboru, SHIBATA Yoichi
Journal of JSAM, 68, 2, 33, 41, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2006, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of the study is to construct a sensing system for precision farming. A Multi Spectral Imaging Sensor (MSIS), which can obtain three images (G, R and NIR) simultaneously, was used for detecting growth status of plants. The sensor was mounted on an unmanned helicopter. An image processing method for acquiring information of crop status with high accuracy was developed. Crop parameters that were measured include SPAD, leaf height, and stems number. Both direct seeding variety and transplant variety of paddy rice were adopted in the research. The result of a field test showed that crop status of both varieties could be detected with sufficient accuracy to apply to precision farming.

Growth analysis and variable rate fertilizer application of wheat field using multi-spectrum image sensor
Tae-Hwan Kang, Ryo Sugiura, Noboru Noguchi
Environmental Control in Biology, 44, 3, 207, 214, Biotron Institute, 2006, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, In this research, growth information of wheat was acquired using multi-spectral imaging sensor (MSIS) mounted on an unmanned helicopter and application of variable rate fertilizer based on this growth information. Growth information of the wheat obtained from normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) value. NDVI value was calculated by image processing of the acquired image. Calculated NDVI was used to generate a map. This map was used for the application of the variable rate fertilizer in the wheat field. Moreover, the growth variation of the wheat by variable rate fertilizer was analyzed. The variability of SPAD was low before the variable rate fertilizer. Comparison of variable rate and uniform rate fertilizer has been carried out. The cross-correlation coefficient of SPAD and NDVI was low in the variable rate fertilizer compare with uniform rate fertilizer section. There is no correlation before and after variable rate fertilizer because the variable rate fertilizer influences the SPAD and NDVI of the wheat. The protein variability of the variable rate fertilizer section is less than the uniform rate fertilizer section. The yield in variable rate fertilizer section that has been fertilized with nitrogenous fertilizer of 1.7 N-kg 10 acre is almost the same with the uniform rate fertilizer section.

An obstacle identification algorithm for a laser rangefinder-based obstacle detector
M Kise, Q Zhang, N Noguchi
TRANSACTIONS OF THE ASAE, 48, 3, 1269, 1278, AMER SOC AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERS, May 2005, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The capability of detecting and identifying obstacles on the expected path and taking appropriate collision avoidance actions automatically is critical for safe operation of autonomous agricultural vehicles. This article presents an obstacle detection and identification algorithm for an on-tractor laser range finder-based obstacle detector This algorithm consists of a template matching function and a Kalman filter for detecting the location of an obstacle, reconstructing the silhouette of the detected obstacle, and estimating its relative motions. Field validation test results verified that this obstacle detector was capable of detecting a moving object within a semicircle of 8 in radius and reconstructing a 2D silhouette of the obstacle progressively in real time. The errors of this obstacle detector in estimating the position, speed, and moving direction of the obstacle relative to the tractor were 0.052 in, 0.11 in s(-1), and 1.2 degrees, respectively. Such accuracies are sufficient for providing safety warning and collision avoidance for autonomous tractors infield operation.

Remote-sensing technology for vegetation monitoring using an unmanned helicopter
R Sugiura, N Noguchi, K Ishii
BIOSYSTEMS ENGINEERING, 90, 4, 369, 379, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, Apr. 2005, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The objective of this study is to develop a system that can generate a map regarding crop status obtained by mounting an imaging sensor on an unmanned helicopter. The flight characteristic of an unmanned helicopter is effective for remote sensing. A real-time kinematic global positioning system (RTK-GPS) was adopted, and an inertial sensor (INS) that provides posture (roll and pitch angles) was installed in the helicopter. In addition, a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) that outputs an absolute direction was also attached to the helicopter. While obtaining pictures using the imaging sensor on the unmanned helicopter, image distortions arose due to changes in helicopter posture. Converting from image coordinates to global coordinates removes this distortion. However, a geomagnetic warp surrounding the helicopter created errors in the posture data, particularly a large GDS error. By correcting GDS errors, it was possible to generate a field map from helicopter-captured image data with a spatial error of 38 cm. (c) 2005 Silsoe Research Institute. All rights reserved.

Development of 3-D GIS map generation system using an unmanned helicopter　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Takashi Iwahori, Ryo Sugiura, Kazunobu Ishii, Noboru Noguchi
2005 ASAE Annual International Meeting, 2005
English, International conference proceedings, The objective of this study is to generate a 3D-GIS map of farm field. The survey system was developed based on an unmanned helicopter. An RTK-GPS was adopted as a positioning sensor, and an inertial sensor that provides posture (roll and pitch angles) was installed on the helicopter. Moreover, a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) that outputs absolute direction is also equipped with the helicopter. And a laser scanner was adopted to detect the distances between a helicopter and ground. This leaser scanner provides a two-dimensional range data. Tthe sensor was attached on a pan-head can rotate in pan and tilt directions. Pan-head angles can be measured by two rotary encoders with 0.001 rad of resolution. Therefore, field elevation was sensed by rotating the pan head during hovering of an unmanned helicopter. In order to develop the precise survey system, the offset due to misalignment of sensor attachment was identified by measuring already measured position. And, because the GDS is influenced by a magnetic field surrounding the GDS, the direction data includes significant error. The GDS bias was also compensated by a FOG. Finally, the developed system accuracy was evaluated by the field test and express a farm field with 3D-GIS map. The 3D-GIS map was generated by transforming a laser scanner coordinate to global coordinate using a helicopter position and posture data.

3-D GIS map generation using a robot tractor with a laser scanner　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Masahiko Yokota, Akira Mizushima, Kazunobu Ishii, Noboru Noguchi
2005 ASAE Annual International Meeting, 2005
English, International conference proceedings, 3-D GIS Map Generation is necessary for applying precision agriculture to acquire the information of field environment. This research allows the autonomous robot tractor to gather surrounding spatial information in a field. For instance, soil moisture content and soil organic matter strongly affect crop growth and yield. Thus, it is important to understanding the variability in the field to be able to promote precision agriculture. In this study, a laser scanner, attached with inclination to the roof of the tractor, acquires the 3-D information by scanning in a plane. It was able to detect objects within 80 m radius during tractor's navigation. In addition, a RTK-GPS measured vehicle position while a posture sensor determined azimuth. This sensing system was able to map in UTM coordinate system the terrain and surrounding components including trees and buildings
moreover it automatically generated a field topography map. This system is promised to be an important tool for future decision makers in agriculture.

Study on a Straight Follower Control Algorithm based on a Laser Scanner
ABE Gou, MIZUSHIMA Akira, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 67, 3, 65, 71, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2005, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The appropriate period of time for the harvesting in Japanese fields is shortly limited according to weather conditions. In this research, the robot tractor system which can automatically follow up to another tractor was developed for increasing work efficiency of the harvesting work. In order to find the preceding vehicle and to sense a relative position and posture under the 2-dimensional coordinate system obtained by a laser scanner, a "Template Matching" was applied. A field test using the developed automatic following control system was conducted to evaluate the performance. As the result, the robot tractor ran with the lateral error of 0.11m and the longitudinal error of less than 0.15m.

Analysis and Management of Potato Yield Non-uniformity Using Helicopter-based Remote Sensing
Yokobori Jun, Niwa Katsuhisa, Seino Nobutaka, Noguchi Noboru
Agricultural Information Research, 14, 1, 1, 10, Japanese Society of Agricultural Informatics, 2005, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Precision agriculture is a management strategy that can be brought to bear on decisions associated with crop production, drawing data from multiple sources using information technologies. It can also help in grasping within-field variability and achieving uniform crop growth. In recent years, the use of satellite images has been researched in attempts to achieve uniform crop growth. However, it is difficult to use real-time satellite images of crop growth for decision making regarding crop growth uniformity because the satellite images are heavily dependent on weather conditions.
This research was carried out in a potato field where the fertilizer system was difference by preceding crops using a real-time information from an unmanned helicopter. Potato growth, soil information and management information were unified by a GIS, clarifying which factors drove potato growth.
Potato growth non-uniformity was found to be influenced by differences in the organic matter content remaining from preceding crops, and it was clarified that excessive nitrogenous fertilizer application in an area with a high organic matter content was the cause of a quality decrease. Therefore, the decision making in this field was clarified using variable-rate applications based on organic matter content. By incorporating elevation data from the unmanned helicopter into the GIS it was revealed that the area with a high organic matter content was in a concave portion of the field. Therefore, it was determined that appropriate nitrogen cultivation management of potato in the area with a high organic matter content required not only variable management but also drainage improvement.

Development of Monitoring System to Support Remote Sensing Using an Unmanned Helicopter
SUGIURA Ryo, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 67, 2, 86, 92, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2005, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, When an unmanned helicopter flies far from an operator, it is very difficult for the operator to recognize the position, posture and working progress of the helicopter. One of the solutions is to develop a monitoring system enables the operator to grasp the state of flying helicopter. The objective of this study is to develop the monitoring system to support the remote sensing using an unmanned helicopter. The radio transmitter was adopted to transmit the position and posture data from the helicopter to the base station on the ground. The base station was composed of the radio receiver and a note type PC. The received helicopter information was visually displayed on the developed software. In addition to the position and posture's display, the software also offers the working progress because the sensed field area can be calculated by the position and posture of the helicopter. Furthermore, it is possible to view the helicopter's condition from the various view points by applying 3-dimensional graphics.

Development of a master-slave robot system for farm operations
N Noguchi, J Will, J Reid, Q Zhang
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 44, 1, 1, 19, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Jul. 2004, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The primary objective of this study was to develop a control system for autonomous mobile robots used in farm operations. To accomplish this objective, it was necessary to develop mobile robots having minimal centralized control. This paper focuses on the development of two basic motion control algorithms, namely a GOTO algorithm and a FOLLOW algorithm, for use in a master-slave multi-robot system. These two robot motion control algorithms would have wide applicability in farm operations. The GOTO algorithm can be applied when the master wants the slave to go to a specific place, a certain distance from the current operational position. Safety is one important issue in controlling the master-slave system because the master and the slave move independently. In this GOTO algorithm, the slave was set to slow-down to allow the master pass the slave safely in case there was a potential collision due to path overlap in the field. The slave was also able to change its path to avoid a crash based on the collaborative GOTO algorithm. The FOLLOW algorithm allows for a more cooperative way to guide the slave to follow the master at a predetermined relative distance and angle, regardless of the traveling speed and direction. This FOLLOW algorithm incorporated a nonlinear sliding mode controller to provide a robust control for the slave. The validation tests indicated that the sliding mode controller could provide a better performance in terms of both lateral offset and spacing controls compared than using a conventional PD controller. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Laser Scanner-Based Obstacle Detection System for Autonomous Tractor : Movement and Shape Detection Targeting at agricultural vehicle
KISE Michio, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 66, 2, 97, 104, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Mar. 2004
Japanese, Detecting obstacles invading the region in front of a tractor, and creating an obstacle avoidance behavior are needed as a safety device for an autonomous tractor. This paper presents an obstacle detection system based on a laser scanner. The algorithm utilized a template matching for reconstructing a shape of a target obstacle and for detecting its movement. An extended Kalman filter worked for enhancing an obstacle detection accuracy. Field tests were conducted to evaluate the developed system. The results indicated that the system was capable of estimate a position, a speed, and a heading angle of an obstacle with 2.7cm, 0.13m/s, 1.4° error, respectively.

Automatic guidance with a laser scanner for a robot tractor in an orchard　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Tsubota Ryo, Noguchi Noboru, Mizushima Akira
Proceedings of the International Conference on Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment, ATOE 2004, 369, 373, 2004
English, International conference proceedings, In the orchard, a GPS isn't available because the surrounding trees prevent the GPS receiver form being brought into operation. Hence in order to guide the robot tractor, surrounding information is necessary. The objective of this study is to develop the guidance system without GPS in an orchard. This system detects the course which robot drive form surrounding environments. To detect them a laser scanner was adopted in front of the robot tractor. This laser scanner can search distances and angles of the obstacles in the forward. The angle resolution is 1 degree, and the distance range is 80m. To control the robot tractor, the position and direction information is necessary. So the relative relation between the robot tractor and orchard rows was detected. Hough transform was adopted because it can detect lines certainly even if the points were missed. Using Hough transform, the lateral and direction error between the robot and orchard rows were calculated. Field test was examined to research the accuracy of this system. The robot tractor ran in the orchard. In this time, the robot tractor loaded RTK-GPS and IMU to compare the result of laser detection. The result of this test, R.M.S of lateral error and direction error was 10cm and 0.7 degree respectively. In this research, the guidance system in the orchard was established. The accuracy of this system was enough to control the robot tractor.

Automatic Navigation of the Agricultural Vehicle using the Cheap Attitude Sensor
Mizushima Akira, Noguchi Noboru, Ishii Kazunobu
The Reference Collection of Annual Meeting, 2004, 446, 447, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2004
Japanese

Automatic Guidance with a 2 Dimensions Laser Scanner for a Robot Tractor
Tsubota Ryo, Noguchi Noboru, Mizushima Akira
The Reference Collection of Annual Meeting, 2004, 448, 449, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2004
Japanese

産業用無人ヘリコプタの飛行モニタリングシステム
岩堀 隆志, 杉浦 綾, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 66, 305, 306, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2004
Japanese

農用車両のための低コスト姿勢角センサの開発
水島 晃, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 66, 77, 78, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2004
Japanese

ヘリコプタベース測量で得られた地形データの簡略化
杉浦 綾, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 66, 303, 304, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2004
Japanese

可変追肥によるパン用小麦の高タンパク質化栽培技術の開発 (第1報)
関 正裕, 福嶌 陽, 田坂 幸平, 佐々木 豊, 野口 伸, 杉浦 綾, 松尾 陽介, 西村 洋, 堀尾 光広, 濱田 安之, 林 和信, 高橋 仁康, 帖佐 直
農業機械学会誌, 66, 237, 238, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2004
Japanese

Development of Remote Sensing System Using an Unmanned Helicopter (Part 2) : 3-dimensional field map generation
SUGIURA Ryo, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 66, 6, 67, 74, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2004, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of this study is to develop a remote sensing system that can generate a map regarding crop status and field information using an unmanned helicopter. The obtained image can be transformed to the global coordinate using the helicopter's position and posture if a sensed field has flat terrain. However, if the field has some inclinations, it is necessary to consider field terrain characteristic to maintain an accuracy of image mapping. In this research, a single axis laser range finder was adopted to obtain a field terrain information and the 3-demonsional image mapping algorism was developed. As a result of the field experiment, this system could generate a topographic map with 9cm error, and 3-dimensional image map with spatial error of 41cm.

Heading Estimation Method using GPS Information
MIZUSHIMA Akira, NOGUCHI Noboru, MATSUO Yousuke
Journal of JSAM, 66, 6, 136, 144, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2004, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Recently, there are many researches about GPS application for agriculture in the world. In this paper, the heading estimation method, using GPS alone, was proposed. In the developed algorithm, the system doesn't use the steering angle information. First, to evaluate the accuracy of direct heading measurement by GPS, straight and curve traveling test was conducted. As a result, the direct measurement included noise and time delay. Therefore, the heading estimation method by auto regression model was developed to overcome these problems. Consequently, 30% of accuracy in the straight travel test and 50% of accuracy in the curve travel test were improved.

Topographic Feature Monitoring System of Peat Land using Robot Tractor
Mizushima Akira, Tsubota Ryo, Noguchi Noboru
Agricultural Information Research, 13, 3, 227, 235, Japanese Society of Agricultural Informatics, 2004, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The peat areas have a lot of patterned indented surface because of the varied forms caused by the fluvial trace and so on. Occasionally, an agricultural vehicle can not enter the farm field after the rain, because the soil of peat areas is soft ground and water table levels gain altitude. To discuss the countermeasure work about the patterned indented surface and the bearing capacity of the land, the precise geographical information of the whole farm field is required. But, the new effective investigation method is required, because the peat areas are extensive fields. In this study, the monitoring system of peat areas using the agricultural robot was developed to obtain precise field information effectively and accurately. As farm field information, the digital elevation model (DEM) is obtained by a GPS and one axis laser range finder. And the roll, pitch angle, slip ratio and subsidence of the vehicle were measured as vehicle information. The field test by an agricultural robot was conducted. Navigation sensors of the robot were an RTK-GPS and an IMU which is composed of fiber optical gyroscope. In addition, the test farm field was evaluated by generating the GIS map using the measured field and vehicle information.

Simplification Method of Topographic Map Using Triangle Polygons
Sugiura Ryo, Noguchi Noboru, Ishii Kazunobu
Agricultural Information Research, 13, 4, 291, 300, Japanese Society of Agricultural Informatics, 2004, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Topographic data obtained by airplane-based surveys is spatially disordered. There are both high and low density portions in the topographic data, and some data are redundant. A graphical terrain model or a digital elevation model (DEM) is generally generated from raster data, and the decimation (reducing the level of redundancy in data) is based on that data structure. However, this approach is not useful when rasterizing topographic data derived from laser range finders because imposing a raster data structure introduces visual and numerical errors. In this research, topographic data was obtained using a one-axis laser range finder mounted on an unmanned helicopter. The collected data were not evenly spaced over a regular grid as rasterized data are. This paper describes methods that can automatically generate triangular mesh from a topographic data set, and simplify the data while maintaining accuracy. These methods were evaluated by examining the topographical feature error resulting from simplifying the 507 raw data points obtained by the helicopter-based survey. When a data set of 107 points were generated (79% size of the original raw data), topographical error was less than 0.12 m. By way of comparison, when 400 data points were eliminated at random, the corresponding error was 1.35 m. Furthermore, when 110 points data were generated by rasterizing, the error was 0.88 m. Consequently, it was concluded that the developed method was very effective.

Field Monitoring Based on an Unmanned Helicopter
NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 65, 4, 13, 17, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Jul. 2003
Japanese

レーザ測距器を用いた農用車両の追従制御に関する研究
阿部 剛, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 65, 159, 160, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003
Japanese

マルチスペクトルイメージングセンサを用いた作物生育センサの構築
深川 知久, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 65, 317, 318, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003
Japanese

精密農業用作業ナビゲータ
松尾 陽介, 濱田 安之, 津賀 幸之介, 山本 聡史, 行本 修, 野口 伸, 山形県立農業試験場, 北海道立中央農業試験場, 井関農機 (株), (株) ソキア, DXアンテナ (株), 日本航空電子工業 (株), 日本電計 (株), 日本無線 (株), ヤンマー農機 (株)
農業機械学会誌, 65, 473, 474, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003
Japanese

産業用無人ヘリコプタを用いた農地情報のリモートセンシング (第2報):レーザ距離計による3次元地形マップ生成
杉浦 綾, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 65, 449, 450, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003
Japanese

農用車両のための航法センサモジュールの開発
水島 晃, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 松尾 陽介, 浜田 安之
農業機械学会誌, 65, 35, 36, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003
Japanese

運転支援用作業ナビゲータ
濱田 安之, 松尾 陽介, 津賀 幸之介, 山本 聡史, 行本 修, 野口 伸, 山形県立農業試験場, 北海道立中央農業試験場, 井関農機 (株), (株) ソキア, DXアンテナ (株), 日本航空電子工業 (株), 日本電計 (株), 日本無線 (株), ヤンマー農機 (株)
農業機械学会誌, 65, 475, 476, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003
Japanese

Development of navigation sensor unit for the agricultural vehicle
A Mizushima, N Noguchi, K Ishii, H Terao
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2003 IEEE/ASME INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCED INTELLIGENT MECHATRONICS (AIM 2003), VOLS 1 AND 2, 1067, 1072, IEEE, 2003, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, In this paper, low cost navigation sensor unit composed of three vibratory gyroscopes and two inclinometers and the DGPS was developed The sensor can provide the position corrected by inclination, heading angle and roll/pitch inclinations. And the measured position was interpolated by the dead reckoning, because the sampling rate of the DGPS was 1Hz. The accuracy of developed sensor unit was evaluated by field test on the flat field, gentle slope and bumpy road.

Remote Sensing Technology for Precision Agriculture
NOGUCHI Noboru, O'BRIEN John G.
Environmental Control in Biology, 41, 2, 107, 120, Japanese Society of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Engineers and Scientists, 2003, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Agriculture methods in developed countries since the Industrial Revolution have tended to favor greater energy inputs using large tractors and increased applications of synthetic chemicals and fertilizer. While these methods of agricultural production have some negative societal and environmental implications, they have generally supported the food needs of the rapidly growing human population. However, a new mode of thought, with new technology is needed for the future. An agricultural production system that utilizes recent advances in sensor technology can fill this role, becoming an essential component of an intelligent agricultural production system. Specifically, remote sensing technology can supply information about current crop status, including maturity and weed infestations. Information gathered through vision sensors and GPS can be integrated to create field management schedules for chemical application, cultivation, and harvest. Satellites, as well as ground-based technologies have been studied in Japan for sensing the condition of field crops. While both methods have some drawbacks to utilization for crop status sensing in precision agriculture, a helicopter-base sensing system offers several solutions to common obstacles. These benefits include timeliness, spatial resolution as well as efficiency. This paper introduces current technologies, describes timely methods for remote sensing in precision agriculture using an unmanned helicopter, and discusses their impact on agricultural production systems.

Automatic Guidance System based on Sensor Fusion of Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope (Part 3) : Enhancement of Heading Angle Accuracy using Vibrating Gyroscope
MIZUSHIMA Akira, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, MATSUO Yousuke, YAMAMOTO Satoshi
Journal of JSAM, 65, 1, 106, 114, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of this research is to develop an automatic guidance system composed of relatively low cost sensors. As a navigation sensor, we used a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) and a gyroscope. In this paper, the precise estimation method of the vehicle orientation was proposed. First, the noise of inclinometer were eliminated by an adaptive line enhancer (ALE). Second, the drift error of the gyroscope was estimated by a least square method (LSM). Third, these sensors output were integrated to obtain the accurate vehicle orientation. Finally, to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed estimation method of orientation, the automatic navigation test was carried out in the actually used field. As a result of the automatic navigation test, it was confirmed that the proposed estimation method had the ability to navigate the mobile vehicle with high accuracy.

Development of Remote Sensing System using an Unmanned Helicopter (Part 1) : GIS Mapping for Agricultural Land Information
SUGIURA Ryo, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 65, 1, 53, 61, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2003, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of this study is to develop a system that can generate a map regarding crop status obtained by an imaging sensor mounted on an unmanned helicopter. As for the unmanned helicopter used in this research, an RTK-GPS was adopted as a positioning sensor, and an inertial sensor that provides posture (roll and pitch angles) was installed in the helicopter. Moreover, a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) that outputs an absolute direction is also equipped with the helicopter. When obtaining the image by the imaging sensor on the helicopter, some distortions caused by change of helicopter's posture arise in the image. In order to remove this distortion, geometric correction by converting from image coordinate to global coordinate is badly needed. But there are errors in posture data. Particularly, large GDS error was caused by warp of geomagnetism surrounding the helicopter. Therefore the method of correction of GDS errors was developed in the study. As the result, it was possible to generate a map including maximum error of 41cm using the image taken from the helicopter.

産業用無人ヘリコプタを用いた農地情報のリモートセンシング (第1報):地磁気方位センサの補正法
杉浦 綾, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 64, 333, 334, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002
Japanese

マルチスペクトルイメージングセンサを用いた作物生育センサの構築
深川 知久, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 64, 341, 342, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002
Japanese

複数の農用移動ロボットによる協調作業システム
堀岡 裕二, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 64, 295, 296, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002
Japanese

地磁気方位センサとジャイロスコープの航法センサ複合化による自動直進アルゴリズム (第3報):振動ジャイロスコープによる方位推定
水島 晃, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 松尾 陽介, 山本 聡史
農業機械学会誌, 64, 297, 298, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002
Japanese

最適レギュレータを適用した農用車両の操舵制御アルゴリズム
木瀬 道夫, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 64, 307, 308, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002
Japanese

Turning function based on dynamic path creation for agricultural mobile robot
N Noguchi, K Ishii, H Terao
INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 2001, 191, 195, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The dynamic path creation method was developed using a third-order spline function. It took into account both the non-holonomic constraints that specify the tangent direction along any feasible path for the robot and a bound on the curvature of the path. By introducing the developed path creation method, the robot can automatically create a feasible turning path on a headland. In the study, both a computer simulation and a field test using a mobile robot based on a medium-size tractor were carried out. The robot used an RTK-GPS and a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) as navigation sensors. Through the field experiments, it was concluded that the developed path creation method of the robot had satisfied performance. Copyright (C) 2001 IFAC.

Side-slip compensation modeling for off-road vehicles
JD Will, JF Reid, N Noguchi
INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 2001, 351, 356, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, This paper presents a model for compensating for side-slip error in off-road vehicles. This model is based on a single-factor correction to the classical single-track model. This factor is calculated as a function of the steering angle of the vehicle, vehicle speed, and the surface over which the vehicle is traveling. The new method does not require additional estimation states nor does it require additional sensors or measurements, as many present techniques require. The performance of this model is evaluated experimentally with a agricultural vehicle, and results from field data are presented for several cases. Surface conditions of dry soil, wet soil, gravel and pavement are investigated and reported on. Copyright (C) 2001 IFAC.

Development of the agricultural autonomous tractor with an RTK-GPS and a FOG
M Kise, N Noguchi, K Ishii, H Terao
INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 2001, 99, 104, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, The autonomous tractor system engaged in all type of operations at fields was developed in the paper. The developed system adopted an RTK-GPS and a Fiber Optical Gyroscope (FOG) as navigation sensors. The sensor-fusion algorithm based on Least Squares Method for estimating FOG bias in each step for detecting an absolute vehicle heading was developed. An Autonomous tractor has to have a mission planner including a path planner, because the tractor uses some types of implement under various settings of PTO, transmission, and engine speed. The navigation maps consisted of a desired path and commands including PTO status, transmission, and other functions were generated by a GIS software for each farm operation. The developed system could autonomously perform a rotary tillage with 6 cm error from the scheduled path at 1.5 m/s by applying the navigation map.

Autonomous agricultural tractor with an intelligent navigation system
N Noguchi, Q Zhang, SF Han, JF Reid
INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 2001, 197, 202, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, This paper reports the development of an autonomous agricultural tractor with an intelligent navigation system. The intelligent navigation system consisted of a set of redundant guidance sensors, a sensor fusion algorithm, and an intelligent navigation algorithm. This autonomous tractor was built on a Case-IH Magnum(1)* MX-240 2-wheel drive agricultural tractor platform. Evaluation tests on autonomous planting and row crop cultivating verified that this autonomous tractor could autonomously perform planting and cultivating functions on typical Midwest farming land. It could achieve an operating speed of 8 m/s ith a small trajectory tracking error of less than 0.05m. Copyright (C) 2001 IFAC.

Autonomous vehicle based on GPS and inertial sensors
N Noguchi, M Kise, JF Reid, Q Zhang
INTELLIGENT CONTROL FOR AGRICULTURAL APPLICATIONS 2001, 155, 160, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, This study developed a field robot for an agricultural operating environment. The navigation sensor consisted of an RTK-GPS, a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG), and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). A sensor fusion algorithm was used to identify FOG bias and compensate for location error in real-time, thus providing sufficient navigation information to support accurate robot guidance in the field. The guidance system could guide the agricultural robot automatically to follow either straight or curve paths including crop rows at a speed of 2.5 m/s. This RMS position error of the desired pathway in the field was less than 3 cm The results indicated that the navigation system was capable of guiding an agricultural robot accurately and robustly under normal agricultural operations. Copyright (C) 2001 IFAC.

Multi-spectrum image sensor for detecting crop status by robot tractor
N Noguchi, JF Reid, K Ishii, H Terao
INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 2001, 111, 115, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, Sensors are an essential part of intelligent agricultural machinery. Machine vision, in particular, can supply information about current crop status, including maturity and weed infestations. The information gathered through machine vision and other sensors such as GPS can be used to create field management schedules for chemical application, cultivation and harvest. The purpose of the study is to develop an intelligent machine vision system for an agricultural mobile robot A multi-spectral imaging system was developed to remotely obtain crop status on a field. Copyright (C) 2001 IFAC.

Crop status sensing based on machine vision for precision farming
N Noguchi, JF Reid, K Ishii, H Terao
INTELLIGENT CONTROL FOR AGRICULTURAL APPLICATIONS 2001, 33, 38, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, Sensors are an essential part of intelligent agricultural machinery. Machine vision, in particular, can supply information about current crop status, including maturity and weed infestations. The information gathered through machine vision and other sensors such as GPS can be used to create field management schedules for chemical application, cultivation and harvest. The purpose of the study is to develop an intelligent machine vision system for an agricultural mobile robot A multi-spectral imaging system was developed to remotely obtain crop status on a field. The developed multi-spectral imaging system (MSIS) consists of an imaging sensor, an illumination sensor, a differential GPS, and a portable computer. The imaging sensor was a custom-developed 3-CCD camera, which contains three separate optical paths and CCD image plane. Special optical filters were installed over the sensors providing three video channels of Green (G), Red (R), and near infrared (NIR). The field experiment of MSIS was conducted using cornfield. The r(2) for estimation of the crop height showed 0.73. And, the r2 for estimation of the SPAD value showed 0.92 by using both reflectance and leaf area information. As a result, the developed vision system enables a robot to recognize the crop status and efficiently conduct field operation through the timely information. The outputs include crop stress maps with nitrogen deficiency indexes on the field which is available on building a database for precise field management. Copyright (C) 2001 IFAC.

Automatic Guidance System based on Sensor Fusion of Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope (Part 2) : Construction of Steering Controller Considering Geomagnetic Warp
MIZUSHIMA Akira, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, YUKUMOTO Osamu, YAMAMOTO Satoshi
Journal of JSAM, 64, 2, 62, 70, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of this research is to develop an automatic guidance system based on sensor fusion of a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) and a gyroscope. From the first report, it was confirmed that an accurate automatic navigation by a fixed desired heading direction was very difficult because of a temporal and spatial geomagnetic variation and a drift error of a gyroscope. In this study, we proposed the dynamic compensation method against both a geomagnetic warp and a gyro drift by constructing the adaptive guidance system. From the computer simulation, the accuracy of sensor fusion guidance system improved about 70% compared with the GDS alone. To evaluate robustness of the developed system, a field test using the developed guidance system was carried out. From the test, the accuracy and robustness of the guidance system improved by utilizing the proposed sensor fusion method using the GDS and the gyroscope.

Field Mobile Robot Navigated by RTK-GPS and FOG (Part 3) : Enhancement of Turning Accuracy by Creating Path applied with Motion Constraints
KISE Michio, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 64, 2, 102, 110, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Turning algorithm for a robot tractor was developed in this paper. Two types of turning paths were created by applying third-order Spline function; forward turning, and switch-back turning. The constraints relating to the tractor characteristics, minimum turning radius and maximum steering speeds, were introduced for creating a feasible turning path. The turning path was recalculated while created path wasn't fulfilled these constraints.
Validity of the constraints was confirmed by a computer simulation. The developed algorithm was tested in the field with the robot tractor developed in a previous paper, and it showed higher following accuracy in comparison to conventional method.

Field Mobile Robot Navigated by RTK-GPS and FOG (Part 4) : The Steering Controller Applied Optimal Controller
KISE Michio, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 64, 4, 76, 84, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2002, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, This paper reported about new steering control algorithm. The steering controller developed in previous paper was designed to guide along with a straight path, and it didn't confirm the accuracy of following a curved path. But the robot tractor has to have a function to travel along any curved path precisely to achieve farm management by the robot. The steering control algorithm applied a linear optimal regulator was developed and tested at a field with some curved paths. The developed system showed the outstanding guidance performance comparing to a conventional method which uses a PI controller on all types of the paths including a 90 degree turn, a sinusoidal, and a forward turning paths. In addition, the developed controller could perform high-speed guidance at 3.0m/s more precisely than the conventional PI controller.

The Engineering Challenge on Robotic Tractor
NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu
JES Ergonomics, 37, 74, 75, Japan Ergonomics Society, 04 Sep. 2001
Japanese

Development of unmanned airboat for water-quality mapping
KAIZU Yutaka, IIO Munetaka, YAMADA Hiroyuki, NOGUCHI Noboru
Biosystems Engineering, 109, 4, 338, 347, 2001, [Peer-reviewed]

Field Mobile Robot navigated by RTK-GPS and FOG and FOG (Part 2) : Autonomous operation by applying navigation map
KISE Michio, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 63, 5, 80, 85, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2001, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, An Autonomous tractor that is able to utilize for all type of operations on fields requires travel in a relatively wide speed range, and has to have a mission planner that controls PTO, transmission, and engine speed as well as path planner. In this paper, the Navigation map, which has not only desired path but also settings of PTO, transmission, engine speed, and other functions as commands to the tractor was invented in order to work out both problems of operation planning and path control.
The developed system adopted an RTK-GPS and a FOG as navigation sensors. It could autonomously perform rotary tillage with 6cm error from scheduled path at 1.5m/s by applying the navigation map.

Field Mobile Robot navigated by RTK-GPS and FOG (Part 1) : Estimation of Absolute Heading Angle by Sensor-fusion with RTK-GPS and FOG
KISE Michio, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 63, 5, 74, 79, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2001, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, A sensor fusion algorithm for an autonomous vehicle utilizing an RTK-GPS and a FOG as navigation sensors was proposed in this paper. The goal of this paper is to develop the method that estimates a heading angle corresponding with GPS coordinate system. The developed algorithm based on Least Squares Method, could estimate FOG bias in each step for detecting a heading angle. The developed method was examined by simulating with actual data by manual operation, and it could estimate the bias angle with satisfying accuracy on all types of paths, straight, curve, and turns. In addition, the guidance system with this method performed automatic planting at the field with 4.5cm r. m. s. error from the desired path.

Navigation Systems and Work Performance of Tilling Robot (Part 1) : Target Specifications and Three Types of Navigation Systems
MATSUO Yosuke, YUKUMOTO Osamu, IRIE Yasuo, ICHISUGI Noriaki, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 63, 3, 114, 121, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2001, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, A tilling robots, which had almost the same performance with human operation, have been developed in the study. Three types of automated navigation systems; (1) an off-the-wire type, in which electric cables are installed around a field area, (2) a GPS type, in which an inertial measuring unit is combined with, and (3) an optical type, in which an auto-tracking type surveying system is applied, were employed for the robot accomplishing the mission in various field conditions and environments. The developed robot could obtain the accurate position and the heading angle in real time using above navigation systems. In addition, the software, which could autonomously achieve tilling on the rectangular-shape field according to the detected posture information, was also developed.

Automatic Guidance Algorism Based on Sensor Fusion of Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope (Part 1) : Sensor fusion composed of Kalman filter
MIZUSHIMA Akira, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, YUKUMOTO Osamu, YAMAMOTO Satoshi
Journal of JSAM, 63, 4, 96, 102, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2001, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The objective of this research is to develop an automatic guidance system composed of relatively low cost sensors. As a navigation sensor, we used a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) and a gyroscope. To increase the accuracy of these sensors outputs and guidance performance, these sensor output were integrated by sensor fusion technique. In the paper, a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) was applied as a gyroscope. To evaluate the performance of these sensors for utilizing on an automatic guidance, and to confirm the effect of sensor fusion technique, the automatic guidance test was conducted on a paddy field. A kalman filter was employed as sensor fusion method. The kinematics of a vehicle was modeled and a heading error and a lateral offset were estimated by the kalman filter. The developed fusion technique was able to control the vehicle automatically with higher accuracy compared to that using single navigation sensor.

Summary of Papers Received 29th JSAM Mori Technical Award
YUKUMOTO O., MATSUO Y., NOGUCHI N.
Journal of JSAM, 62, 3, 2, 2, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 May 2000
Japanese

Robotization of agricultural vehicles (Part 1) - Component technologies and navigation systems
O Yukumoto, Y Matsuo, N Noguchi
JARQ-JAPAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY, 34, 2, 99, 105, TROPICAL AGRICULTURE RES CENTR, Apr. 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, Studies on the robotization of agricultural vehicles have been conducted to perform labor-saving, high-precision operations, etc. Component technologies for the robotization were described in general, along with navigation systems. As an example of robotized vehicles, we planned to develop a tilling robot. To recognize the position with an error less than 5 cm and at intervals less than 1 s, we developed 3 types of navigation systems; an off-the-wire type, a kinematic global positioning system (GPS) with inertial navigation system (INS) type and an optical type.

Robotization of agricultural vehicles (Part 2) - Description of the tilling robot
O Yukumoto, Y Matsuo, N Noguchi
JARQ-JAPAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY, 34, 2, 107, 114, TROPICAL AGRICULTURE RES CENTR, Apr. 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, We have developed a tilling robot that can recognize its own position and heading, while performing unmanned tilling at almost the same work rate as manual work. The tilling robot is composed of navigation systems for positioning and heading, a robotized vehicle, a controller, and an operation software. A geomagnetic sensor (TMS) is utilized for the navigation system for heading. The operation software consists of teaching, path planning, vehicle controlling, self-diagnosis, and abnormality alarming sections. We found that the tilling robot can perform unmanned tilling operations over a whole field area of 50 a with almost the same efficiency and accuracy as manual work.

Vehicle guidance parameter determination from crop row images using principal component analysis
FAC Pinto, JF Reid, Q Zhang, N Noguchi
JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH, 75, 3, 257, 264, ACADEMIC PRESS LTD, Mar. 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, An image recognition algorithm has been developed as part of a vision-based guidance system for row crops. Each combination of the vehicle guidance parameters, offset and heading angle, was treated as a 'pose' of the interested object, the crop rows. Whilst several pose recognition algorithms have previously been developed, the proposed algorithm is capable of determining the heading angle and the offset of a vehicle relative to the crop rows. A set of poses was collected and used as a training set. The training stage of the algorithm used the principal component analysis (Hotelling transform) to produce a low-dimensional eigenspace on which each pose was represented by its projections. Given a new image, the pose (heading angle and offset) recognition was done by projecting the image onto the eigenspace and determining the closest training image projection. Another set of poses was used to test the performance of the algorithm. Using different region of interest to train and test the algorithm, it presented the least average absolute error of 4.47 cm and 1.26 degrees for offset and heading angle, respectively, when using the central part of images for pose determination. (C) 2000 Silsoe Research Institute

地磁気方位センサと光ファイバージャイロスコープの航法センサ複合化による自動直進アルゴリズム (第1報)
水島 晃, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 行本 修, 山本 聡史
農業機械学会誌, 62, 347, 348, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000
Japanese

ナビゲーションマップに基づいたほ場作業ロボット
木瀬 道夫, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 62, 355, 356, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000
Japanese

農用移動ロボットの動的経路生成に関する研究 (第1報):スプライン関数による経路生成
飯塚 学, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 62, 359, 360, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000
Japanese

マシンビジョンを用いた窒素ストレスの計測
石井 一暢, 飯田 岳, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 62, 363, 364, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000
Japanese

自律走行車両のGPS位置計測に関わる傾斜補正
水島 晃, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 62, 357, 358, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000
Japanese

視覚センサを用いたとうもろこしの成長診断
山下 修作, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 桃野 寛, 鈴木 剛
農業機械学会誌, 62, 365, 366, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000
Japanese

Agricultural automatic guidance research in North America
JF Reid, Q Zhang, N Noguchi, M Dickson
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 25, 1-2, 155, 167, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, Jan. 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, A review of the recent research in agricultural vehicle guidance automation in North America is presented. A conceptual framework of an agricultural vehicle guidance automation system includes navigation sensors, navigation planner, vehicle motion models, and steering controllers. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Nitrogen Stress Sensing System using Machine Vision for Precision Farming (Part 1) : Measurement System Overview and Fundamental Experiments
IIDA Takashi, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 62, 2, 87, 93, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Precision farming technology with controlling nitrogen treatment is available for management and environmental considerations. The objective of this study is to develop a method for obtaining nitrogen stress using machine vision. Digital green meter and leaf color scale have been already commercialized as measurement devices for nitrogen stress of crops. In this paper, measurement principle of nitrogen stress is proposed based on leaf reflectance. It was concluded that the wavelength of 550, 650nm is proper for detecting nitrogen stress.

Vehicle Guidance System Using DGPS and Geomagnetic Direction Sensor
KISE Michio, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 62, 6, 145, 153, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, A positioning system is an essential part for an autonomous vehicle. Recent researches have shown that positioning based on a GPS offers high possibility for fulfilling the vehicle guidance. When enough number of satellites and high GDOP are assured, a current RTK-GPS can achieve accuracy of 1-2cm error. However, the RTK-GPS is still costly for farm use. Therefore, the paper dealt with utilization of the low cost Differential-GPS (DGPS) for the vehicle guidance system. In the paper, two guidance systems (NAV-1 and NAV-2) with a DGPS and a Geomagnetic Direction Sensor (GDS) have been developed. The NAV-1 could navigate the vehicle to the desired position with the heading angle sensed by the GDS and desired heading angle cyclically updated by the DGPS with 0.5m error. An another system, the NAV-2 could make the vehicle travel along a straight path using a lateral error from a desired path using both the DGPS and the GDS. Noise of lateral error caused by DGPS measurement error was filtered out by combining a moving-average with an AR model.

Correction of GPS Positioning by Vehicle Inclinations for Agricultural Vehicle Guidance
MIZUSHIMA Akira, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 62, 4, 146, 153, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 2000, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, A GPS is widely used as a positioning system for an automatic vehicle guidance. But, generally a GPS antenna is installed at the top of a vehicle whose height is 2 to 3 meters from the ground, a position error raised from vehicle inclinations (roll and pitch) is included. In this research, to increase travel accuracy of vehicle guidance, we propose the correction method of the position error caused by vehicle inclinations. To evaluate a performance of the developed correction method, the travel test by giving roll and pitch was conducted. The average of lateral error indicated about 17.1cm, when the vehicle traveled without inclination correction, while the average error was reduced up to about 2.1cm by introducing the inclination correction. In addition, to investigate the performance under higher velocity, the traveling test in which running speed exceeding 4.0m/s was also carried out. Without the inclination correction, the R. M. S. error in the lateral direction of the vehicle reached 10.4cm. On the other hand, when the developed correction method was utilized, the R. M. S. error decreased to about 3.8cm. It was concluded that the performance of the developed guidance system on high speed travel was satisfied with actual field managements.

Precision Agriculture in Mid-west of the United States of America
NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 61, 1, 12, 16, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Jan. 1999
Japanese

Position Correction of Vehicle Inclination for Agricultural Vehicle Guidance System
Mizushima Akira, Noguchi Noboru, Ishii Kazunobu, Terao Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 61, 559, 560, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1999
English

Vehicle Guidance System by Use of Low Accuracy GPS (Part 1):Compensation of the time delay of GPS by AR model
Kise M., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H.
Journal of JSAM, 61, 561, 562, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1999
English

Measurement of Crop Nitrogen Status Using Machine Vision for Precision Farming:Estimation method for a SPAD value from corn leaf reflectance
Iida Takashi, Noguchi Noboru, Ishii Kazunobu, Terao Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 61, 513, 514, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1999
English

Machine Vision Integration for Vehicle Guidance
ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 61, 535, 536, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1999
English

耕うんロボットの開発 (第8報):高速作業と作業経路の適用性拡大
松尾 陽介, 行本 修, 小林 達也, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 61, 379, 380, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1999
Japanese

Navigation of an agricultural autonomous mobile robot
K Ishii, H Terao, N Noguchi
ADVANCED ROBOTICS, 13, 3, 289, 291, VSP BV, 1999, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal

Vision Intelligence for Mobile Agro-Robotic System
NOGUCHI N.
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, 11, 3, 193, 199, 1999, [Peer-reviewed]

バイオガスを用いたコージェネレーションシステム (第2報):コージェネレーションシステムの基本特性
三谷 真二, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 石井 耕太
農業機械学会誌, 60, 257, 258, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998
Japanese

農用移動ロボットの多目的通信システム (第1報):通信システムの構築およびほ場マップの作成
木瀬 道夫, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢
農業機械学会誌, 60, 371, 372, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998
Japanese

耕うんロボットの開発 (第5報):自己診断と異常時対応
松尾 陽介, 行本 修, 小林 達也, 野口 伸, 入江 康夫, 一杉 則昭, 鈴木 正肚
農業機械学会誌, 60, 417, 418, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998
Japanese

視覚情報処理の知能化によるプレシジョンファーミング (第1報):GAとファジィ推論を融合した作物・雑草認識法
野口 伸, Reid John F.
農業機械学会誌, 60, 329, 330, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998
Japanese

視覚情報処理の知能化によるプレシジョンファーミング (第2報):ニューラルネットワークによる作物生育情報の抽出とGISマッピング
野口 伸, Reid John F.
農業機械学会誌, 60, 331, 332, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998
Japanese

Stability criteria for tractor-implement operation on slopes
MG Yisa, H Terao, N Noguchi, M Kubota
JOURNAL OF TERRAMECHANICS, 35, 1, 1, 19, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, Jan. 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, Mathematical models of tractor-implement combinations were developed to predict their stability on slopes. A procedure based on three criteria was then developed to assess the stability of both tractor-trailed implement combinations and tractor-mounted implement combinations. The three criteria were "sideslip criterion" which determines the slope angle-heading angle combination at which uncontrollable slip sets in; "overturning criterion" which determines the slope angle-heading angle combinations at which partial and total stability limits are reached, i.e. slope angle-heading angle combinations at which the vertical load on one or two tyres will be zero; and the "general criterion", which results directly from regulations in many countries that require tractor-implement combinations to have at least 20% of their total weight on the front axle at all times. This criterion extended this requirement to the effect that at least 20% of the total weight must be available on each side of the combination at all times. The application of these criteria gave stability regions for a given combination. Simultaneous application of the criteria gave optimum parameters which would maximize these stability regions. Simulation results showed that for better, stability of tractor-implement combinations, the implement centre of gravity should be behind its axle. Other results showed that tractors in combination with mounted implements like sprayers, spreaders etc., would be more stable if the implements were designed so that their centres of gravity move forward as emptying progresses. (C) 1998 ISTVS. All rights reserved.

Development of Biogas-Diesel Engine for Farm Use (Part 4) : Robustness of Optimized Biogas Supply Schedule
ISHII Kohta, FUMOTO Takahiro, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 60, 6, 3, 9, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, To increase the efficiency of the biogas-diesel dual fuel engine by heat recovery from an engine coolant and an exhaust gas, a co-generation system (CGS) was developed. An gas heat exchanger of a double-tube and parallel flow type are adopted considering the easiness of manufacturing and system modeling. As a result of the experiment, the heat exchanger could collect more quantity of heat than that raised from the simulation. As an additional merit of the heat exchanger, the heat efficiency of the engine also increases because the flow resistance of exhaust gas were decreased by contraction of gas volume. The total energy efficiency of the developed CGS is equal to 65%.

Development of Tilling Robot using Position Sensing System and Geomagnetic Direction Sensor (Part3) : Improvement in Performance of 90° Turn and Sideways Movement
YUKUMOTO Osamu, MATSUO Yosuke, NOGUCHI Noboru, SUZUKI Masato
Journal of JSAM, 60, 5, 53, 61, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, In order to improve a performance of the tilling robot, control methods of a 90°turn and a sideways movement were developed. The controller of the 90°turn has an ability that is able to learn a turn radius during operation so as to compensate a fluctuation of a turn radius which is caused by changing the moisture content and the soil type of the field surface. On the other hand, in order to move the robot sideways effectively and to guide the robot to the target path precisely, the controller of the sideways movement was contrived to judge the necessity of the forward movement by evaluating difficulty of the robot control as a quantity.

Development of Tilling Robot (Part2) : Steering Control on Autonomous Operation using Position Sensing System and Geomagnetic Direction Sensor
YUKUMOTO Osamu, MATSUO Yosuke, NOGUCHI Noboru, SUZUKI Masato
Journal of JSAM, 60, 4, 29, 36, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, This study aims to develop a steering control system for following a predetermined path which was obtained by the module of a task planning. The tilling robot system which had a position sensing system (OPTREC) and a geomagnetic direction sensor (TMS) was developed. The OPTREC which was remodeled from an opt-electric type surveying instrument is able to follow the movement of the robot and measure the position in the interval of 0.5s to 0.8s. The steering controller which considered nonlinearity of the vehicle dynamics, enabled the robot to follow the predetermined path under the average lateral error of about 5.2cm on a flat field.

Development of Tilling Robot (Part 1) : Concept of Control Algorithm and Task Planning Using Position Sensing System and Geomagnetic Direction Sensor
YUKUMOTO Osamu, MATSUO Yosuke, NOGUCHI Noboru, SUZUKI Masato
Journal of JSAM, 60, 3, 37, 44, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The purpose of this study is to develop a robot system which satisfies the necessary requirements to till a field. After an operator teaches the robot the area to cultivate by operating around the inside of the field, the robot is able to till the overall region. This paper dealt with the control algorithm which had a series of functions from a task planning of the robot to a following control of the path which was determined by the task panning. The control algorithm of the robot was divided into five modules: "Teaching", "Task planning", "Switch-back operation", "Transference" and "Round-about operation". The effectiveness of the developed robot system was verified in field experiments.

Studies on Self-learning Autonomous Vehicles (Part 3) : Positioning System for Autonomous Vehicle
ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 60, 1, 51, 58, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, The environment in which an agricultural vehicle works is a time-variant and nonlinear system; therefore, an adaptive steering controller is required for navigating the vehicle precisely. In this paper, the positioning system which utilized a vision information was modified, so as to be applied for the neuro-controller which is one of nonlinear controllers. The classifier of the visual marker and the background which we developed, is based on the chromaticities subjected to a rotation and a translation of coordinates. The accuracy of the positioning system which was investigated by a field experiment, showed maximum error of 13cm on a flat meadow of 40m×60m. In addition, the recognition method of the visual marker, which applied a neural network, was also developed to improve the measurement accuracy. Finally, the vehicle automation experiment was conducted on a flat meadow hypothesized on a reciprocating work. As a result, the autonomous vehicle was able to travel in a desired work width using the positioning system, and indicated satisfied performance.

Development of Biogas-Diesel Engine for Farm Use (Part 3) : Robustness of Optimized Biogas Supply Schedule
ISHII Kohta, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 60, 5, 3, 10, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, In our research a dual-fuel diesel engine was operated with biogas and diesel fuel. The performance of the engine was able to be increased by optimized scheduling of Biogas supply to the engine by using a buffering tank. In this method, it is assumed that the profiles of biogas production and the engine load are fixed every day. But it is expected that these profiles are changing every day. Therefore, the declaration of the engine performance caused by such fluctuation was evaluated. The fluctuation of biogas production profile had almost no effect on the engine performance, but had more effects on engine load. But in many cases, the declaration of the performance were not so significant. Therefore the optimized schedule of Biogas supply has the robustness against the fluctuation of the operating situation.

Studies on Self-learning Autonomous Vehicles (Part 4) : Online Neuro-controller
ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru, KISE Michio
Journal of JSAM, 60, 2, 53, 58, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1998, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, Agricultural vehicles operate in an offroad environment, and the attached implements are changed as occasion demands; thereby, the motion characteristics of the vehicle essentially change. The purpose of this study is to develop an adaptive steering controller using the measurement system of a position and a heading angle dealt in previous studies. To suit the environment change, an adaptable neuro-controller was developed, utilizing a self-organization function of a neural network. Computer simulations using a vehicle simulator were performed. As a result, the online neuro-controller could adapt to the change in the field surface condition, and make the vehicle travel precisely. Furthermore, in consideration of an actual vehicle system, position estimation using the vehicle simulator was developed for compensating a time delay of the positioning system. It was clear that the neuro-controller can appropriately adapt for the change in the field surface, and is also effective for a farm field by the experiment using the developed position estimation.

Path planning of an agricultural mobile robot by neural network and genetic algorithm
N Noguchi, H Terao
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 18, 2-3, 187, 204, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, Aug. 1997, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, The purpose of this study is to develop a method that is able to create a suboptimal path of an agricultural mobile robot. This work is an attempt to apply a control technique combining a neural network (NN) and a genetic algorithm (GA). A NN is applied to describe the motion of the agricultural mobile robot as a nonlinear system because it is able to identify the dynamics of complex systems with its high learning ability. To create a path using a simulator described by the NN, a GA, which is inspired by biological evolution and uses a process of variation and selection to search a solution space, is utilized as an optimization method. Using this simulator and the GA, the time series of the steer angles, which were the control input, were optimized, and consequently an optimal work path of the mobile robot was created. The technique explored here should be applicable to a wide variety of nonlinear control problems in agriculture. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

Development of an agricultural mobile robot using a geomagnetic direction sensor and image sensors
N Noguchi, K Ishii, H Terao
JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH, 67, 1, 1, 15, ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, May 1997, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, To solve the problem of labour shortage and the decrease in skilled agricultural workers, it is thought that mobile robots, which substitute for conventional tractors, will play an important role in the next century. This paper describes a mobile robot system, including a positioning system, using image sensors. A mobile robot which can be controlled by positions obtained from the image sensors and the heading angles from a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS) has been developed. Because of its low cost, the GDS has recently been used in much research related to mobile robots. However, there are two major problems in using the GDS as a sensor: the error from magnetism which exists around the robot and the error from the robot inclinations. Owing to these error factors of the GDS and in order to utilize it effectively, a method is developed in this paper to refine the GDS output using neural networks (NN). The positioning system for the mobile robot is based on the principle of triangulation; it is composed of a main system and two subsystems both having a static image sensor. Each subsystem is able to follow the movement of the robot and to measure the angle to the robot using image analysis. The main system calculates the robot position using two angles from the subsystems and sends it to the robot using a telecommunication system. Finally, assuming that the robot will transport hay on a meadow, a control algorithm for the mobile robot system is developed, and a field test is conducted on grassland to evaluate the developed robot system. The average error of the final position for each target position was found to be about 0.4 m. The absolute maximum error and the r.m.s. error of the position for the predetermined path were about 0.51 m and 0.23 m, respectively, over all travels. (C) 1997 Silsoe Research Institute.

Development of a tillage robot using a position sensing system and a geomagnetic direction sensor　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Noboru Noguchi, Yosuke Matsuo, Osamu Yukumoto, Masato Suzuki
Paper - American Society of Agricultural Engineers, 1, ASAE, 1997
English, International conference proceedings, The purpose of this study is to develop a robot system which can satisfy the necessary requirements to till a field. After an operator teaches the robot the area to cultivate by driving along with the boundary of a field, the robot is able to till the overall region. The paper deals with the control algorithm which has a series of required functions from task planning of the robot to a following the path which was determined by the task panning. The control algorithm of the robot is divided into five modules: `Teaching', `Task planning', `Switchback operation', `Transference' and `Roundabout operation'. The tillage robot utilizes a position sensing system (OPTREC) and a geomagnetic direction sensor (GDS). Furthermore, to improve the performance of the tillage robot, control methods for a 90° turn and a lateral movement to ensure precise cultivation in the roundabout operation, are developed. The controller of the 90° turn also has an ability to learn the turn radius during operation to compensate fluctuation of the robot motion due to changes in the moisture content and soil type of the field.

Optimization of work schedule for agricultural machines by using genetic algorithms　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Noboru Noguchi, Yukinori Shibuya, Hideo Terao
Paper - American Society of Agricultural Engineers, 1, ASAE, 1997
English, International conference proceedings, The paper deals with task planning for hay transport on a slope using two transporting robots and a loading robot. Multi-layered genetic algorithms (LGA) to plan tasks for some of the robots are developed. The proposed method could create a work schedule which can reduce the work time by up to 51% compared to a randomly scheduled situation. In addition, the effectiveness of this method was assured by comparing the results with the schedule made by a man with the schedule made by a man with experience in hey transport.

ニューラルネットワークによる農用車両の知能化 (第6報):自律走行車両の適応制御
石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 59, 115, 116, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1997
Japanese

耕うんロボットの開発 (第3報):作業ソフトの開発
行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 油田 克也, 野口 伸, 伊藤 勝美, 一杉 則昭
農業機械学会誌, 59, 55, 56, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1997
Japanese

耕うんロボットの開発 (第4報):自動追尾型測量装置を用いた無人走行
松尾 陽介, 行本 修, 油田 克也, 野口 伸, 伊藤 勝美, 一杉 則昭
農業機械学会誌, 59, 57, 58, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1997
Japanese

多目的最適化理論を適用したトラクタ機関の最適制御 (第2報):ヒューマンインターフェイスの構築
建石 邦夫, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 59, 3, 4, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1997
Japanese

バイオガスの農用小型ディーゼル機関への応用 (第4報):システム特性変動の最適性への影響
石井 耕太, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 59, 221, 222, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1997
Japanese

バイオガスを用いたコージェネレーションシステム (第1報):熱交換器のモデル化
麓 貴弘, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 59, 219, 220, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1997
Japanese

バイオガスの農用小型ディーゼル機関への応用 (第２報)
石井 耕太, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 59, 1, 3, 10, 1997, [Peer-reviewed]

航法用地磁気方位センサの高精度補正法 (第１報)
水島晃, 野口伸
農業機械学会誌, 59, 1, 49, 58, 1997, [Peer-reviewed]

A tractor engine control system based on a fuzzy logic and a genetic algorithm
D Wierzbicki, H Terao, N Noguchi, C Waszkiewicz
MATHEMATICAL AND CONTROL APPLICATIONS IN AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE, 193, 198, PERGAMON PRESS LTD, 1997, [Peer-reviewed]
English, International conference proceedings, This paper describes the development of a fuzzy logic control system to control the speed of a diesel engine by adjusting the rack of the injection pump. A genetic algorithm technique was used to simultaneously design the fuzzy logic membership functions and rules. The engine tests were conducted; the results indicate that the response of the fuzzy control system design by a genetic algorithm had a faster response than the other controllers tested. The fuzzy control system also had a higher engine speed stability along with reduced fuel consumption.

An Over View of the Grobal Positioning System (GPS) and Application for Agriculture : Advanced Technology in the Near Future
NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 58, 4, 130, 134, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Jul. 1996
Japanese

Performance improvement by control of flow rates and diesel injection timing on dual-fuel engine with ethanol
N Noguchi, H Terao, C Sakata
BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY, 56, 1, 35, 39, ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Apr. 1996, [Peer-reviewed]
English, Scientific journal, To utilize ethanol from agricultural residue as a fuel in diesel engines, a dual-fuel engine was developed. The engine, which was equipped with a system to electrically control diesel and alcohol flow rates, met basic requirements of a tractor engine, including engine speed control and setting of the torque curve. However, engine knock due to alcohol was a significant drawback. A diesel injection pump with a timing and flow rate control system was adapted and the effect of injection timing on combustion and performance was investigated. It was observed that the timing control was effective in reducing Engine knock caused by rapid alcohol combustion. (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Application of Alcohol Fumigation to Diesel Tractor Engine (Part 4) : Feasibility as a Tractor Engine
SAKATA Chikanori, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 58, 2, 3, 10, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Mar. 1996
Japanese, To save fossil energy and reduce exhaust gas emission, a dual-fuel tractor engine with alcohol fumigation was developed. This engine has two control modes, that is "diesel fuel mode" and "dual-fuel mode". With this system, it is able to choose a control mode in various operating conditions at will. Power, heat consumption, NOx concentration and smoke density of the tested engine were examined through a PTO performance test for the two control modes. The performance of each mode indicated as good as a normal aspiration diesel engine of a tractor. In addition to this, on the dual-fuel mode NOx concentration was 40% less than on the diesel mode. Finally, plowing was carried out as feasible test using the dual-fuel tractor. The satisfactory performance of the dual-fuel control system and durability for over-loads of the engine were confirmed.

Optimal Control of a Dual-fuel Diesel Engine
NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kohta, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 58, 2, 113, 122, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1996, [Peer-reviewed]
Japanese, A small diesel engine was modified to operate in a dual-fuel mode with methane that was one of the alternate fuels. A microprocessor system for controlling the diesel fuel flow rate and methane flow rate was designed. The system was able to measure the flow rate of methane, the engine torque and the engine speed electrically in addition to the control. The technology for supplying diesel fuel and methane was developed using this control system, in order to control the dual-fuel engine optimaly in terms of its performance characteristics, such as the efficiency, the smoke and the replacement of methane. The advantages of this technology using the weighting method were (1) to be able to control optimally the dual-fuel engine under the general performance derived from all parameters, and (2) to determine the weight of each parameter at will as occasion demands in designing a dual-fuel diesel engine.

Studies on Self-learning Autonomous Vehicles (Part 2) : Verification of Neuro-controller by Model Vehicle
ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 57, 6, 61, 67, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Nov. 1995
Japanese, This study intends to make an appropriate control system for a nonlinear vehicle kinematics in view of developing autonomous agricultural vehicles. In order to evaluate the results of computer simulation reported in Part 1 and to develop an autonomous vehicle, a model vehicle was designed and fabricated. To make neuro-controller effective, a learning procedure by using vehicle simulator was contrived. As the vehicle velocity was necessary for following control using the neuro-controller, the velocity was estimated using data from a geomagnetic sensor and rotary encoders. Finally, following control examinations were carried out, and it was clarified that neuro-controller was effective for vehicle control, which corroborated the results of Part 1.

Development of Biogas-Diesel Engine for Farm Use (Part 1) : Basic Characteristics of Operation with Biogas
ISHII Kohta, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 57, 6, 3, 10, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 01 Nov. 1995
Japanese, A direct-injection type diesel engine was remodeled to operate on both diesel fuel and biogas. An apparatus was made to generate synthetic biogas which consists of methane and carbon dioxide. The apparatus supplies biogas, which is premixed with intake air stream, into an intake manifold of the engine. The basic performances of the engine for the operation in dual-fuel mode were investigated. It was found that NOx emission decreased approximately 30 to 70% by use of biogas. The tested engine could operate normally even with the biogas which had 40% methane concentration. However, the specific heat consumption increased by supplying biogas under lower loads. Both engine load and biogas flowrate were key parameters for the effective operation of the engine.

Work Schedule of Industrial Robots by Using Multi-Layered Genetic Algorithms
NOGUCHI Noboru, TERAO Hideo
Transactions of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, 31, 10, 1762, 1768, The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, 1995
To solve the problem of lack of labor and decrease of skilled workers for agriculture and construction industry, we propose the method of creating work schedule for some industrial robots which perform their respective task simultaneously. For obtaining suboptimal feasible solution of the problem which includes two combinational problems, a layered genetic algorithm (LGA) is contrived. The LGA is able to solve the two combinational problems with relevance without increase of calculating load.
In this paper, we consider an agricultural production system, that is, hay transportation on slope by using two transporting robots and a loading robot. Work schedule for two transporting robots is optimized in the upper layer of the LGA, while work schedule of the loading robot is optimized in the lower layer which is constrained by the upper layer. The proposed method can create work schedule under not only single objective function such as work or work time, but also multi-objective function considering both of them. The schedule made by LGA under the objective function of work can reduce work by up to 56% compared to randomly scheduled situation. The effectiveness of this method is assured by comparing the results with the schedule made by a man with experience of hay transportation. As the quality of the schedule by this method is almost equal to that made by a man with experience, it is also possible to evaluate the ability of workers from the aspect of work efficiency. Finally, we discuss the human decision mechanism on scheduling by identifying the weighting factors for work and work time in multi-objective function.

タイヤ空気圧の低減が土壌踏圧に及ぼす影響
近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 57, 195, 196, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1995
Japanese

軽油・アルコール二燃料機関の農用トラクタへの応用 (第1報)
坂田 親紀, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 57, 185, 186, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1995
Japanese

地磁気方位センサによる車両の自律走行に関する研究 (第1報)
中島 健一郎, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 57, 217, 218, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1995
Japanese

耕うんロボットの開発 (第1報):構想と航法装置XNAV
松尾 陽介, 行本 修, 油田 克也, 野口 伸, 入江 康夫, 緒方 成行
農業機械学会誌, 57, 225, 226, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1995
Japanese

バイオガスの農用小型ディーゼル機関への応用 (第1報):実験装置の製作および基礎実験
石井 耕太, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 57, 37, 38, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1995
Japanese

Studies on Self-learning Autonomous Vehicles. (Part 1). Following Control Using Neuro-controller.:Following Control Using Neuro-controller
ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 56, 4, 53, 60, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1994
Japanese, This study intends to make an appropriate control system for a nonlinear vehicle kinematics, in view of developing autonomous agricultural vehicles. The kinematics of vehicles that operate on off-road has higher nonlinearity than that of vehicles on a road. Neural Networks (NN) that can be used to solve nonlinear problems was applied to the vehicle control. It was clear that this controller could give output appropriately for both the trained data and the untrained data. Furthermore, the accuracy of control using the neuro-controller was investigated by comparing with the PID controller, in order to evaluate the ability of neuro-controller as a following control system. It was discovered that the neuro-controller indicated higher accuracy than the PID controller, and it was effective for the vehicle control.

Optimal Control of Agricultural Vehicles by Neural Networks(Part 2). Optimal Schedule of Working Route by Use of Genetic Algorithms.:Optimal Schedule of Working Route by Use of Genetic Algorithms
NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 56, 2, 83, 92, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1994
Japanese, In order to utilize the agricultural vehicle as an autonomous one, it is necessary to schedule the working route in advance. The vehicle simulator was constructed for both forward and backward movements by neural networks. And genetic algorithms were adopted as an optimization method of a vehicle kinematic. By use of these simulators and genetic algorithms, the time series of the steering angles, that are the control input, were optimized and consequently the working routes of the vehicle were scheduled optimally. As this method divides the route between the initial and terminal conditions into some segments under some constraints and finds the optimal route for each segment, it is possible to create the optimal working route for the complicated conditions including both forward and backward movements.

ニューラルネットワークによる農用車両の知能化 (第4報):実験車両の試作
石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 56, 349, 350, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1994
Japanese

傾斜草地における車両系機械群の最適運用法 (第1報):遺伝的アルゴリズムによる最適化
野口 伸, 中島 健一郎, 寺尾 日出男, 澁谷 幸憲
農業機械学会誌, 56, 343, 344, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1994
Japanese

傾斜草地における車両系機械群の最適運用法 (第2報):多目的最適化問題への展開
野口 伸, 中島 健一郎, 寺尾 日出男, 澁谷 幸憲
農業機械学会誌, 56, 345, 346, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1994
Japanese

Optimal Control of Agricultural Vehicles by Neural Networks. Part 1. Kinematic Model of Vehicle by Neural Networks.:Kinematic Model of Vehicle by Neural Networks
NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 55, 5, 83, 92, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1993
Japanese, The object of this study is to control agricultural vehicle utilizing neural network system (NNS) through nonlinear controller. Kinematics of the vehicle was described as the emulator, that was nonlinear dynamic model, by NNS, and its accuracy was investigated using the training data. The generalization of the emulator for the vehicle was also confirmed by the movement patterns which were not the training data. It was made clear that the output of NNS were in good agreement with the experimental data, and were correcter than the output of the physical model neglecting slip angle. Furthermore, the simpler movements such as lane change and meandering motion were carried out to evaluate the ability of the emulator.

Development of Location Method for Driverless Tractor Using Image Sensor. (Part 1). Construction of Measurement System.:Construction of Measurement System
OTA Katsuyuki, TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru, IRIMAJIRI Tomohiko, KUBOTA Mamoru
Journal of JSAM, 55, 6, 59, 67, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1993
Japanese, The purpose of this study is to develop a location method for driverless tractor. The principle of measuring location is triangulation using two image sensors set at the corners of a field. A tractor equipped with a target marker was recognized by CCD camera as an image. The CCD camera rotates with a motor to pursue the movement of the target marker. This paper presents the construction of a sensor module which consists of a CCD camera, step motor and potentiometer. An experiment was performed to estimate the accuracy of the system, and the angle and location of the target marker under indoor environment were measured. The result shows that in region of 20m width and 14m length, the error of measurement is less than 8.4cm. A target pursuit system was tested, and it was judged from the data that the pursuit control system provided acceptable performance.

ニューラルネットワークによる農用車両の知能化 (第3報):遺伝アルゴリズムに基づいた最適経路生成
野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 55, 209, 210, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1993
Japanese

ニューラルネットワークによる農用車両の知能化 (第2報):ニューラルネットワークコントローラを用いた追従制御
石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 55, 207, 208, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1993
Japanese

アルコール・軽油二燃料機関の最適制御に関する研究 (第2報):最高燃焼圧力制御のトラクタ機関への応用
酒井 太朗, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 55, 3, 4, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1993
Japanese

Optimal Control for Brake Specific Fuel consumption of a Small Diesel Engine.
NOGUCHI Noboru, AN Siangtai, SAKAI Taro, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 54, 3, 97, 102, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

コーンペネトロメータによる土壌硬度の測定に関する研究 (I):土性及び含水比の影響
近江谷 和彦, 佐野 泰將, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 54, 63, 64, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

農用車両による土壌踏圧現象の評価に関する研究 (VII):農用車両の質量とタイヤ空気圧による影響
近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 54, 467, 467, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

農用タイヤのけん引・制動性能に関する研究
藤田 耕一, 寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 54, 15, 16, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

アルコール・軽油二燃料機関の最適制御に関する研究 (第1報):最高燃焼圧力の制御
酒井 太朗, 野口 伸, 近江谷 和彦, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 54, 1, 2, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

視覚センサによる移動体の位置計測法の開発 (第1報):計測システムの試作
太田 克行, 野口 伸, 近江谷 和彦, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 54, 249, 250, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

メタンガスの農用小型ディーゼル機関への応用に関する研究 (第2報):最適運転制御法の考案
野口 伸, 近江谷 和彦, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 54, 3, 4, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

神経回路網による農用車両の知能化に関する研究 (第1報):車両運動のモデル化
野口 伸, 近江谷 和彦, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 54, 424, 425, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1992
Japanese

アルコール・軽油二燃料噴射式機関の農用トラクタへの応用に関する研究 (第3報):燃焼変動の解析
野口 伸, 酒井 太朗, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 53, 5, 6, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1991
Japanese

メタンガスの農用小型ディーゼル機関への応用に関する研究 (第1報):メタンガス吸入時の運転特性
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 53, 7, 8, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1991
Japanese

農用車両による土壌踏圧現象の評価に関する研究 (VI):農用車両の走行回数と土壌含水比の影響
近江谷 和彦, 佐野 泰將, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 53, 65, 66, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1991
Japanese

Application of alcohol fumigation to diesel tractor engine. (Part 1). Development of dual-fuel control system.:Development of Dual-Fuel Control System
NOGUCHI Noboru, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 53, 1, 3, 11, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1991
Japanese, The utilization of alcohol as diesel tractor engine fuel was investigated. A personal computer based control system was developed to control the flow rates of gas oil and alcohol. With this control system it was able to use alcohol for a diesel engine in various operating conditions and achieve the important control requirements such as engine speed, torque curve setting and engine stop.
The alcohol can be supplied up to more than 50 percent of the fuel energy to the engine at full load. This system with the digital PID controller indicated satisfactory performance with quick response to load changes. In case of changing from 4/4 load to no load in 2sec, the maximum speed difference was approximately 13.5 percent and the settling time was about 5sec.

Application of Alcohol Fumigation to Diesel Tractor Engine. (Part 2). Operation of a Tractor Engine with Dual-fuel.:Operation of a Tractor Engine with Dual-fuel
NOGUCHI Noboru, AN Siangtai, TERAO Hideo
Journal of JSAM, 53, 4, 11, 19, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1991
Japanese, The purposes of this paper were to remodel a conventional tractor engine and to demonstrate the feasiblity of using alcohol as alternative fuel for the farm tractor with diesel engine. To investigate the performance of the dual-fuel engine and the static characteristic of the engine control system, a dynamometer was connected to the tractor through a PTO shaft. The performance of the dual-fuel tractor engine was measured in terms of PTO power, BSHC, smoke density, NO_x emission and engine noise. The dynamic characteristic of the engine control system was tested under rapid load changes through the release and depression of a clutch pedal. Furthermore, the field tests using a rotary tiller were carried out. The engine control system provided acceptable engine response to the varying load condition in field operation.

Improvement in the brake thermal efficiency of the small diesel engine for farm use by alcohol fumigation (Part4).
TERAO Hideo, OHMIYA Kazuhiko, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 52, 1, 11, 21, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1990
Japanese, It is useful to allow a lower proof ethanol to be utilized as a diesel engine fuel by fumigation. This is because hydrated ethanol costs much less per unit of energy produced than does anhydrous ethanol. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of ethanol proof on general engine performance of a diesel engine in terms of brake horsepower, brake specific heat consumption, combustion stability and NOx emission.
In case of adopting the optimal injection timing of diesel fuel, it was found that the water content in ethanol up to 40w-% showed only a small difference in the brake specific heat consumption as compared with the anhydrous ethanol. The combustion stability for the water content 60w-% was much lower than for the anhydrous ethanol. However, it was also clear that the combustion stability for the water content 60w-% was improved by preheating the air up to 50°C, and the water content 60w-% produced 50% less NOx than the anhydrous ethanol.

アルコール・軽油二燃料噴射式機関の農用トラクタへの応用に関する研究 (第1報):二燃料制御法の考案
野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男
農業機械学会誌, 52, 55, 56, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1990
Japanese

アルコール・軽油二燃料噴射式機関の農用トラクタへの応用に関する研究 (第2報):二燃料によるトラクタ機関の運転
野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男, 安 相太
農業機械学会誌, 52, 57, 58, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1990
Japanese

Improvement in the brake thermal efficiency of the small diesel engine for farm use by alcohol fumigation. (Part 3). Ultrasonic atomization of alcohol and preheating of intake air.:Ultrasonic Atomization of Alcohol and Preheating of Intake Air
TERAO Hideo, OHMIYA Kazuhiko, NOGUCHI Noboru
Journal of JSAM, 51, 3, 5, 13, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1989
Japanese, This paper describes the effects of alcohol atomization and preheating of intake air on the improvement in engine performance and the the reduction of exhaust gas emissions. Two kinds of atomization apparatus with a ultrasonic transducer were devised. One was called "impulse method", which had the characteristic resonant frequency of 29.3kHz, the other was "ultrasonic method", which had that of 1.5MHz. In accordance with the preliminaly experiment using steady air flow through the model intake tube, it was found that the impulse method generated a fine mist of uniformly sized alcohol droplets into the intake tube, and the ultrasonic method excessively promoted vaporization due to minimized droplets. In the engine tests, it was clear that the impulse method was available to improve engine performace and reduce exhaust gas emissions. Under the higher loads, it was also necessary to increase intake temperature up to 70°C. When these conditions were fulfilled, the obtained effects were as follows. Under moderate loads, BSHC was reduced by 5% and as for exhaust emissions, HCHO was by 30% and UBM by 35%. Under the higher loads, both of HCHO and UBM could be reduced by 30% without the increase in BSHC.

アルコール吸入による農用小型ディーゼル機関の熱効率改善に関する研究 (第5報):含水アルコール利用による燃焼と性能
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 51, 2, 2, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1989
Japanese

アルコール吸入による農用小型ディーゼル機関の熱効率改善に関する研究 (第4報):超音波による微粒化と給気加熱
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 50, 5, 5, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1988
Japanese

アルコール吸入による農用小型ディーゼル機関の熱効率改善に関する研究 (第3報):吸気管内におけるアルコールの気化現象
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 50, 4, 4, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1988
Japanese

アルコール吸入による農用ディーゼル機関の熱効率改善に関する研究 (第2報):アルコール吸入時の機関運転特性
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 49, 6, 6, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1987
Japanese

アルコール吸入による農用ディーゼル機関の熱効率改善に関する研究 (第1報):供試機関の改造
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 野口 伸
農業機械学会誌, 49, 5, 5, The Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers, 1987
Japanese

A review of autonomous agricultural vehicles (The experience of Hokkaido University)
Ali Roshanianfard, Noboru Noguchi, Hiroshi Okamoto, Kazunobu Ishii, Journal of Terramechanics, 91, 155, 183, 01 Oct. 2020
Robotic farming will play an undeniably significant role in future sustainable agriculture. Autonomous agricultural vehicles for arable crops and their components are reviewed herein, and their differing possible components, advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The autonomous agricultural vehicles are qualified from technical points of view, including each vehicle's hardware unit (platform development, platform, transporter system, operation functions, communication, sensors [positional sensor, attitude sensor, and safety sensor], and control unit), the physical environment, and the control algorithm. The development process for different vehicles is described. As an operational case study, all investigations conducted at Hokkaido University between 1990 and 2018 are discussed and evaluated based on the described classification. The development procedure, the process of component selection, developmental challenges, and the performance indicators of the vehicles are discussed in detail. The development process and applicability of each component are then presented, and recommendations for future studies are noted. Finally, the most important experiences and lessons, and some recommendations are outlined., Elsevier Ltd, English, Book review

マシンビジョンの新展開 3章 スマート農業におけるマシンビジョン
野口伸, 映像情報メディア学会誌, 73, 2, 218‐222, 01 Mar. 2019
Japanese

Current Status and Perspectives for Agricultural Robots
野口伸, 自動車技術, 73, 2, 93‐98, 01 Feb. 2019
Japanese

ICT農業・農業ロボットの最前線
野口伸, 電気学会誌, 139, 1, 30‐33, 01 Jan. 2019
Japanese

国際学術振興を目指す学会のパラダイム[XIII]農業の自動化・ロボットによるイノベーション
野口伸, 93, 11, 1005‐1007, Nov. 2018
Japanese

北海道におけるイノベーション創出のために―未来に向けて北海道の土木技術が担うもの―ICTとロボットによるスマート農業
野口伸, 土木学会誌, 103, 9, 20‐21, 15 Sep. 2018
Japanese

Society5.0実現へ向けて~SIPの取り組みから展望する「次世代農林水産業創造技術」への取り組み―アグリイノベーション創出―
野口伸, 技術と経済, 616, 30‐36, 01 Jun. 2018
Japanese

ロボットAI農業 4 ロボット農機の将来展望
野口伸, アグリバイオ, 1, 13, 1347‐1351, 20 Dec. 2017
Japanese

農業ICT―IoT・ビッグデータ・AI活用で農業を成長産業へ―2 農業機械の自動化・ロボット化の現状と将来像
野口伸, 情報処理, 58, 9, 794‐797, 797, 15 Aug. 2017
日本農業は，農家戸数の減少と就業者の高齢化により労働力不足が深刻である．近年この問題解決策としてITやロボットを活用したスマート農業への期待が高まっている．ロボット化による超省力化技術は日本農業を持続的に発展させる上で不可欠である．このような背景から本稿では今後の進展が期待される農業機械の自動化・ロボット化の現状と将来像について解説した．内閣府戦略的イノベーション創造プログラム（SIP）「次世代農林水産業創造技術」の取り組みや準天頂衛星システム利用など最新の農業ロボット研究を通して農業イノベーションの創出可能性を考察した．, 情報処理学会 ; 1960-, Japanese

GPSを活用した農作業効率化の取り組み GPSを活用したロボット農機の最新状況と今後の課題
野口伸, 技術と普及, 54, 7, 20‐21,16, 32,16, 15 Jul. 2017
全国農業改良普及支援協会, Japanese

The development of field mapping system using a low‐cost three‐dimensional camera
岡田麻友子, 加藤友彬, 野口伸, 石井一暢, 岡本博史, 農業食料工学会北海道支部会報, 57, 33‐37, 37, 31 Mar. 2017
農業食料工学会北海道支部, Japanese

畜産分野における省力化技術 農業・畜産分野のスマート化の現状と展望
野口伸, 畜産コンサルタント, 53, 3, 12‐16, 16, 01 Mar. 2017
中央畜産会, Japanese

ロボットと農業のこれから―ロボット農機開発の最新状況と将来像―3台以上のロボットで協調作業
野口伸, 機械化農業, 3188, 14‐17, 17, 01 Jan. 2017
新農林社, Japanese

Agricultural ICT and Vehicle Robot based on Geospatial Information
野口伸, 日本ロボット学会誌, 35, 5, 372‐375(J‐STAGE), 375, 2017
日本ロボット学会 ; 1983-, Japanese

農業ロボットの現状と課題
野口伸, 農業, 1616, 6‐27, 27, 01 Sep. 2016
大日本農会, Japanese

ICT×ロボット技術によるスマート農業
野口伸, 日本機械学会誌, 119, 1174, 514‐517, 517, Sep. 2016
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

ICTとロボットが創る新しい農業
野口伸, 砂糖類・でん粉情報, 44, 2‐6, 6, 10 May 2016
農畜産業振興機構調査情報部, Japanese

低コスト・省力化,軽労化技術等の開発―稲麦大豆作等土地利用型農業における自動農作業体系化技術の開発―第1章 共通基盤技術開発 4 生体情報センサの開発
野口伸, 石井一暢, 農林水産省農林水産技術会議事務局研究成果, 541, 21, 22, 31 Mar. 2016
Japanese

低コスト・省力化,軽労化技術等の開発―稲麦大豆作等土地利用型農業における自動農作業体系化技術の開発―第2章 稲麦大豆の作業ロボット開発 3 大型トラクタのロボット化
野口伸, 石井一暢, 岡本博史, 楊亮亮, 農林水産省農林水産技術会議事務局研究成果, 541, 43, 45, 31 Mar. 2016
Japanese

低コスト・省力化,軽労化技術等の開発―稲麦大豆作等土地利用型農業における自動農作業体系化技術の開発―第5章 大規模地域におけるロボット作業体系の実証試験 1 大型トラクタロボットの現地適応性
野口伸, 石井一暢, 岡本博史, 楊亮亮, 農林水産省農林水産技術会議事務局研究成果, 541, 77, 81, 31 Mar. 2016
Japanese

農業におけるG空間ビッグデータ収集・分析・活用による高度営農支援プラットフォームの構築
岡本博史, 野口伸, 写真測量とリモートセンシング, 55, 1, 34, 37, 11 Mar. 2016
日本写真測量学会, Japanese

Autonomous Maneuvers of a Robotic Tractor for Farming
Hao Wang, Noboru Noguchi, 2016 IEEE/SICE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SYSTEM INTEGRATION (SII), 592, 597, 2016, [Peer-reviewed]
This paper address the problem of motion control of an agricultural robot during the whole process of farming work; including maneuvers to follow straight crop rows inside the field, and operations of lane change at the headland. The navigation sensors consisted of an inertial measurement unit and a real-time kinematic GPS. The control algorithm was able to identify the bias of the yaw angle and compensate lateral deviation caused by inclination of the robotic tractor, in order to guide the robot accurately in the field. A circle-back turning algorithm based on continuous primitives connected together was used at the headland to create reference paths. In addition, steering maneuvers for lane change were performed while the robot tractor is moving in order to protect the surface of the soil at the headland. To follow the path accurately, the slide movement of the tractor and the steering rate were taken into account by estimating the turning radius on real-time. Therefore, guidance paths could be optimized based on the specific condition of the field. Finally, the performance of proposed autonomous maneuvers was evaluated in field experiments., IEEE, English

ICT農業とリモートセンシング
野口伸, 日本ロボット学会誌, 34, 2, 100‐102(J‐STAGE), 102, 2016
The Robotics Society of Japan, Japanese

ビークルロボティクスが拓く新しい農業
野口伸, 産学官連携ジャーナル(Web), 11, 12, 19‐22 (WEB ONLY), 15 Dec. 2015
Japanese

ITを使ったロボット農業の可能性 ロボット農業の意義と展望~水稲,畑作への導入効果と酪農への展開
野口伸, 農家の友, 67, 11, 20, 24, 01 Nov. 2015
北海道農業改良普及協会, Japanese

Development of Leader-follower System for Field Work
Chi Zhang, Noboru Noguchi, 2015 IEEE/SICE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SYSTEM INTEGRATION (SII), 364, 368, 2015, [Peer-reviewed]
Two robot tractors were used in a leader-follower system for agricultural field work. Each of the robots was fully independent and could conduct field work alone. They could also work together to form a certain spatial arrangement during the operation. During the headland turn, each robot was simplified as a rectangular zone, and the two robots cooperated and coordinated to turn to next path without collision. This system was designed for practical application, and the system gains the ability to tolerate most of the disturbances in a real field. Fault tolerant methods in accordance with agricultural work were illustrated to solve the common disturbances from the GPS and the IMU. Field experiments were conducted to determine the effectiveness of the system. The results of the experiments showed that the two robot tractors can work safely together to complete the field work. The average lateral error of the navigation system of the robots was less than 0.04 m, and the efficiency of the leader-follower system was improved by 84.3 percent compared with that of a conventional single robot., IEEE, English

Current Status and Future Prospects for Vehicle Robotics on Agriculture
野口伸, 精密工学会誌(Web), 81, 1, 22-25 (J-STAGE), 25, 2015
The Japan Society for Precision Engineering, Japanese

ロボット農業はどこを走っているのか?
野口伸, 農家の友, 66, 11, 64, 67, 01 Nov. 2014
北海道農業改良普及協会, Japanese

G空間 G空間情報を高度に活用した次世代農業
野口伸, 測量, 64, 8, 6, 11, 10 Aug. 2014
日本測量協会, Japanese

新しい農業の展開
野口伸, 機械化農業, 3152, 31, 34, 01 Jan. 2014
Japanese

最新試験研究技術情報 第4回 人間と協調して作業するロボットトラクタ
野口伸, 技術と普及, 50, 10, 62, 15 Oct. 2013
Japanese

Current Status and Future Tendency for Development of Robot Tractors
野口伸, 自動車技術, 67, 2, 83, 86, 01 Feb. 2013
自動車技術会, Japanese

ITを活用した農業機械と導入に向けた留意点
野口 伸, 農家の友, 65, 1, 86, 88, Jan. 2013
北海道農業改良普及協会, Japanese

総合討論 大規模農業を支える農業機械・先端技術の研究開発戦略とは (地域農業交流セミナー 高度化する農業技術(機械・情報)と大規模先進農業への活用(2)トラクタ・作業機の通信制御システムやGPSガイダンスシステム導入を中心に)
原 令幸, 野口 伸, A, 農業, 1559, 40, 51, May 2012
大日本農会, Japanese

ITを活用した農業技術の新技術と展開 ロボットトラクタによる無人農作業システム
野口伸, ブレインテクノニュース, 150, 8, 12, 15 Mar. 2012
Japanese

北海道農業に不可欠な情報化・自動化技術の動向と展望
野口伸, 農業, 1557, 34, 45, 01 Mar. 2012
大日本農会, Japanese

Development status of agricultural vehicle robots
NOGUCHI Noboru, 農林水産技術研究ジャーナル, 35, 2, 10, 15, 01 Feb. 2012
農林水産技術情報協会, Japanese

Innovation of Agricultural Pruduction using Information and Communication Technology
NOGUCHI Noboru, 計測と制御 = Journal of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, 50, 12, 1025, 1027, 10 Dec. 2011
計測自動制御学会, Japanese

ロボットトラクターの開発状況と実用化
野口 伸, 農家の友, 63, 11, 100, 102, Nov. 2011
北海道農業改良普及協会, Japanese

Assessment of water quality of marsh by combing multiple remote sensing platforms with GIS　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of CIGR2011 (CD-ROM), No.22G04, 2011

K-means based Land Use Supervised Classification　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of CIGR2011 (CD-ROM), No.22G02, 2011

The Development and Test of a Multi-spectral Camera used in the Crop Growth Status Information Acquisition　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of CIGR2011 (CD-ROM), No.22G03, 2011

Autonomous navigation system of crawler-type robot tractor
Ryosuke Takai, Oscar Barawid Jr., Noboru Noguchi, IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 18, 1, 14165, 14169, 2011
The objective of this research was to modify a commercial crawler-type tractor into a robot tractor that can be navigated autonomously by using RTK-GPS and IMU as navigation sensors. Navigation algorithms were developed. Steering control test and autonomous navigation test in farmland were conducted. Steering control test was conducted in different speeds, and the accuracy was evaluated. In each speed, the robot ran with 1∼3cm lateral error. Autonomous navigation test was conducted on multi-path map. In headland area, the robot used keyhole turning and transferred to the next path. The robot could finish the multipath navigation successfully. © 2011 IFAC., English

Development of Robotic Boat for Water Environment Monitoring　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of CIGR2011 (CD-ROM), No.22C03, 2011

Development of an automatic navigation system using laser range finder in the paddy field　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of CIGR2011 (CD-ROM), No.22C02, 2011

Motion detection and tracking using the 3D-camera
Xiang Yin, Noboru Noguchi, IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 18, 1, 14139, 14144, 2011
This paper presents how to detect and track the real-time motion using the PMD 3D-camera. Different modalities, including intensity image, range image and amplitude image, can be provided by the 3D-camera. Both the intensity and the range images are used in the motion detection and tracking process. First, intensity and range backgrounds are separately modeled. During the motion detection and tracking, the segmentation results based on intensity and range images are combined, which results in a robust segmentation of the current scene. And such a segmented image has to be filtered in real-time applications because the NIR light emitted by the 3D-camera will be affected by the objects too close to the 3D-camera, resulting in intensity distortion, and low resolution of the intensity image constitutes another reason. After segmentation, edge and contour detection is used to try to figure out the number and positions of mobile objects. By experiments, the process of real-time motion detection and tracking is demonstrated. Finally, some existing problems and proposed solutions such as shadow removal are discussed. © 2011 IFAC., English

Apple internal quality classification using X-ray and SVM
Liangliang Yang, Fuzeng Yang, Noboru Noguchi, IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 18, 1, 14145, 14150, 2011
Classify the apple's internal quality is important for apple's quality. Mould core apple is not eatable and can reduce the juice quality if used for making juice. The core tissue's color is brown and the density of mould core apple is lower than a normal apple. This paper describes the detection of apple's one internal quality (mould core disease) on the physical basis - density. X-ray technology can provide us internal image of an object that reflects the object's density. This paper presents the method of processing the X-ray image and creating the feature vector for using support vector machine (SVM) method to classify the apple's internal quality. The experiment results show that the classification method could detect the mould core apple at the accuracy of 91.03%, and detect un-mould core apple at the accuracy of around 95.95%. © 2011 IFAC., English

Automatic steering system for electronic robot vehicle
Oscar C. Barawid Jr., Noboru Noguchi, IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 18, 1, 2901, 2906, 2011
This research developed an automatic steering system for electronic robot vehicles that is economical in comparison with commercial automatic steering systems today. A 48-VDC battery-operated electronic vehicle was used as a platform that has been modified the steering system into an automatic steering system using the following steps. First, the motor specification determination using strain gauges attached to the steering shaft
second, steering controller method/algorithm selection
third, steering system calibration
fourth, steering angle determination
and finally, autonomous navigation test runs. The lateral and heading errors were 0.08 m and 1.2 deg, respectively. These results indicated that the developed automatic steering system could control the robot vehicle accurately in an autonomous navigation. © 2011 IFAC., English

Rice yields and protein content estimation by low-altitude remote sensing using spectroradiometer
Issei Han-Ya, Kazunobu Ishii, Noboru Noguchi, IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 18, 1, 1796, 1801, 2011
This research developed a system which monitors the growth of paddy rice by using a lowaltitude remote sensing using spectroradiometer. In the crop yields' estimation, the wavelength band of an ultraviolet range or a short wave infrared region was essential for the estimation of the result of the PLS regression analysis or the multiple linear regression analysis. Using these information, the estimation error of the crop yield was 12.8 [kg/10a]. Moreover, the estimation error of protein content was 0.14% by using the near infrared and the short wave infrared information. In addition, the estimation models were applied to the other paddy field. There were also high relationship between the crop status and the measured wavelength. These results suggested that this low-altitude remote sensing system was able to obtain the variation of the crop status in the paddy rice fields. In addition, the information of the wavelength in short wave infrared was important to estimate the crop status. © 2011 IFAC., English

Robot farming system using multiple robot tractors in Japan agriculture
Noboru Noguchi, Oscar C. Barawid Jr., IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 18, 1, 633, 637, 2011
The objective of the research is to develop a robot farming system using multiple robots. The research will discuss the application of multiple robots in Japan agriculture for rice, wheat and soybean. The robot farming system includes a rice planting robot, a seeding robot, a robot tractor, a combine robot harvester and various implements attached on the robot tractor. One of the key elements of the robot farming system is that it should be more economical to the farmers. The important parts of the farming system are the robot management system, low-cost system, robot farming safety, and real-time monitoring/documentation. Keywords: multiple robots, robotics, robot farming system, robot tractors, robot management system, low-cost system. © 2011 IFAC., English

Development of a 2-CMOS Camera for Agricultural Use　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O42, 2011

CF Card Storage Module Based on MCU　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O43, 2011

Omni-directional moving objects detection based on the optical flow field image　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O40, 2011

Development of an Obstacle Recognition System for a Field Robot using a 3D-camera　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O41, 2011

Low-altitude Remote Sensing for Monitoring Marsh and Lake　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O36, 2011

Land Use Classification of Satellite Imagery using Minimum Distance Classifier　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O31, 2011

Development of Robotic Boat for Water Environment Monitoring　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O24, 2011

Autonomous Rice Transplanter Using DGPS Compass and Machine Vision　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O21, 2011

Development of an automatic navigation system using laser range finder in the paddy field　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O20, 2011

Monitoring Winter Wheat Growth Using Plant Nutrition Active Sensor　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O14, 2011

Development of Variable Rate Fertilization System using Low-cost ECU and Plant Nutrition Sensor　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 4th Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (CD-ROM), No.O13, 2011

衛星測位システムと地図情報システムを用いた牧草地の空間情報化と利用 : 周波数解析による基盤整備法
速水 敦郎, 姜 太煥, 海津 裕, 野口 伸, 農業機械學會誌, 72, 6, 515, 515, 01 Nov. 2010
Japanese

車両系農業ロボットの現状と展望
野口 伸, 建設の施工企画, 728, 58, 61, 25 Oct. 2010
日本建設機械化協会, Japanese

知能的太陽光植物工場の新展開(10)情報化・インテリジェント化の視点
野口 伸, 農業および園芸, 85, 10, 1037, 1044, Oct. 2010
養賢堂, Japanese

P19-13 無人ヘリコプタによる土壌窒素診断と可変施肥(ポスター紹介,19.肥料および施肥法,2010年度北海道大会)
横堀 潤, 野口 伸, 丹羽 勝久, 西宗 昭, 日本土壌肥料学会講演要旨集, 56, 149, 149, 07 Sep. 2010
一般社団法人日本土壌肥料学会, Japanese

Preface : Special Issue for "Future Perspective for Agricultural Technology"
NOGUCHI Noboru, Journal of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, 113, 1100, 511, 511, 05 Jul. 2010
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Vehicle Robotics in Agriculture
NOGUCHI Noboru, Systems, control and information, 54, 4, 144, 148, 15 Apr. 2010
Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers, Japanese

Application of Rapeseed Oil to a Diesel Engine　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of AGRICONTROL 2010 IFAC International Conference（CD-ROM）, 0037, 2010

Remote sensing of lakes and marshes using helicopter based system　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Taroh Kawamura, Baofeng Su, Issei Han-Ya, Kazunobu Ish, Noboru Noguch, IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline), 3, 1, 0032, 2010
The research aimed to develop a non-contact sensing system using an unmanned helicopter mounted with some sensors to specify an effective wavelength band for the eutrophication of lakes and marshes. Also, it aims to make an estimation model of each element. The reason why an estimation model is needed is because a number of lakes and marshes are lost due to some problems like decrease in water quality, eutrophication, ecological correctness, and deterioration of waterfront environment. These are posed by human activity such as landfill and reclamation in improvement project of farmland and housing land in the recent years. Lakes and marshes form a complex ecosystem cycle, receive effects in physics, chemistry, and living things and have multi-functionality. In order to estimate model, a multi spectral image sensor, a photon sensor, and a highly accurate spectroradiometer were used as sensing system. The end goal was to understand the characteristic of lakes and marshes, and how to manage them properly., English

Development of Crawler-Type Robot Tractor based on GPS and IMU
TAKAI R., IFAC Proceedings, 2010, 0025, 1, 2010

Monitoring Rice Growth Environment by Low-altitude Remote Sensing using Spectroradiometer　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of AGRICONTROL 2010 IFAC International Conference（CD-ROM）, 0031, 2010

産業用無人ヘリコプタによる圃場情報(土壌窒素供給能)の精密把握と可変施肥システム
野口 伸, 丹羽 勝久, 横堀 潤, 西 宗昭, 北農, 76, 4, 478, 487, Oct. 2009
肥料の高騰で土壌診断依頼点数が急増し、受け入れ能力を超える診断の依頼のある施設もあると報道された。土壌診断は、土壌採取、前処理、分析、診断の手順に、多くの労力、時間、経費を要し、しかも圃場単位での診断になる。一方、窒素に限るが、自動操縦ヘリコプタにセンサを搭載すれば、短時間に面的に土壌診断、結果を精密マップ化し、圃場内の窒素供給量に応じて施肥量を調節できる。さらに、作物の生育、収量・品質をこうした土壌診断マップと重ねて解析し、技術改善情報も提供できる。上記の両者とも可能になっているが、ここでは前者に相当する、［土壌窒素供給能としての熱水可溶性窒素の意義］、［産業用無人ヘリコプタによる土壌窒素供給能を含む圃場情報の精密リモートセンシング］、［土壌窒素供給能情報を用いた可変施肥システム］を中心に、一連の研究の経緯、概要を紹介する。, 北海道農事試驗場北農會, Japanese

Information Communication Technology for Food Production
NOGUCHI Noboru, 計測と制御 = Journal of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, 48, 2, 130, 133, 10 Feb. 2009
計測自動制御学会, Japanese

Monitoring rice growth environment by remote sensing　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
IFAC-Bio‐Robotics Ⅳ(CD-ROM), 802, 2009

Evaluation of ultrasonic sensors as guidance sensors for greenhouse applications robots　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
IFAC-Bio‐Robotics Ⅳ(CD-ROM), 706, 2009

Navigation of agricultural robot using omnidirectional camera in grass land　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
IFAC-Bio‐Robotics Ⅳ(CD-ROM), 705, 2009

Development of low-cost and small-scale electronic robot vehicle for orchard application　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
IFAC-Bio‐Robotics Ⅳ(CD-ROM), 206, 2009

Automatic steering system for the electronic robot vehicle　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
IFAC-Bio‐Robotics Ⅳ(CD-ROM), 204, 2009

Satellite and Aerial Remote Sensing for Production Estimates and Crop Assessment　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
IFAC-Bio‐Robotics Ⅳ(CD-ROM), 601, 2009

Spatial information analysis of grass-land using information technology　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress, 653, 657, 2008

Development of the biogas tractor with two biogas feeding algorithms　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress, 1602, 1607, 2008

Estimating hay bale position with stereo vision technique using an omnidirectional camera　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress, 1584, 1589, 2008

Calibration method for 2-dimensional laser scanner attached on a robot vehicle　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress, 1596, 1601, 2008

Enhancement of NDV information from satellite imagery by combining with low altitude sensing　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress, 9579, 9584, 2008

The study on the effect of biogas addition on the diesel tractor engine for the development of a biogas controller　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress., 9585, 9590, 2008

Informatics and Robotics for Bioproduction Systems
NOGUCHI Noboru, FUJIWARA Tatsuya, 地理情報システム学会講演論文集 = Papers and proceedings of the Geographic Information Systems Association, 16, 41, 44, 20 Oct. 2007
Japanese

トラクタロボット化の現状と将来展望 (特集 農業用ロボット)
野口 伸, ロボット, 177, 15, 19, Jul. 2007
日本ロボット工業会, Japanese

1A1-H03 Analysis of Steering Dynamics and Development of Control System for Robot Crawler Tractor
MATSUI Takatoshi, INOUE Tetsuo, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2007, "1A1, H03(1)"-"1A1-H03(4)", 11 May 2007
The objective of our research is to robotize an agricultural crawler tractor based on a previously developed autonomous wheeled tractor. The navigation sensors used for this purpose were RTK-GPS based on VRS (Virtual Reference Station) as well as FOG. The RTK-GPS provided the absolute position of the tractor, while FOG gave its heading angle. The tractor was modified by the manufacturer to allow electronic control of several functions including steering; which was performed by differentiating speeds of left and right tracks., The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Development of hay bales detection algorithm using omnidirectional multi-camera　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2nd IFAC International Conference on Modeling and Design of Control System in Agriculture, 211, 216, 2007

Automatic guidance system in coconut field application using laser scanner　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2nd IFAC International Conference on Modeling and Design of Control System in Agriculture, 171, 176, 2007

Real-time image transformation using a dynamic inclinometer　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2nd IFAC International Conference on Modeling and Design of Control System in Agriculture, 177, 181, 2007

Enhancement of NDVI information from satellite imagery by integrating an unmanned helicopter　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proc. 2nd Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture, DV-10, 2007

Spatial information analysis of grass-land using information technology　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proc. 2nd Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture, DD-17, 2007

A development of a low-cost dual-spectral camera system　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proc. 2nd Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture, SV-16, 2007

Development of lodging forecast model by remote sensing　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proc. 2nd Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture, DD-04, 2007

Effect of feeding biogas into diesel engine's intake manifold; focusing on emissions　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Proc. International Conference of Progress in Biogas, 101, 104, 2007

16-11 北海道十勝地域における小麦子実タンパク質含有率のポテンシャル地図作成(16. 畑地土壌肥よく度, 2006年度秋田大会講演要旨)
丹羽 勝久, 横堀 潤, 榎本 吉典, 野口 伸, 日本土壌肥料学会講演要旨集, 52, 130, 130, 05 Sep. 2006
一般社団法人日本土壌肥料学会, Japanese

2P2-C12 Enhancement of Satellite Imageries Using an Unmanned Helicopter for Remote Sensing
HAN-YA Issei, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2006, "2P2, C12(1)"-"2P2-C12(2)", 2006
Recently, field imageries became easy to obtain by QuickBird-2, SPOT and other satellites ; however, they are still negatively affected by atmospheric conditions, and their spatial resolution remains fairly low causing large position errors. Moreover, a large number of reference points is also required to estimate the field conditions accurately. The objective of this study is to develop a reliable field monitoring system combining helicopter-base and satellite-base remote-sensing. An ambient illumination (AI) sensor was attached to the unmanned helicopter to compensate for the effect of atmospheric conditions. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of satellite images is transformed to reflectance value through corresponding images acquired by the unmanned helicopter, which are then used for calibration of satellite imagery. Therefore, the helicopter-base system effectively contributes to the enhancement of the satellite-base remote-sensing., The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

2A1-B17 Acquisition of Field Information Using a Robot Tractor
KANG Tae-Hwan, SIRAMIZU Kazuhiro, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2006, "2A1, B17(1)"-"2A1-B17(4)", 2006
The objective of this research is to develop a field irregularity modifying system using work chracteristics of harvesting and generating GIS maps based on measured terrain information. To generate a GIS map based on the work chracteristics of harvesting and terrain information, vehicle location is essential; therefore a Real Time Kinematical Global Positioning System (RTK-GPS) provided vehicle positions, and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) provided direction and inclination angles, and a laser scanner provided terrain information of the field. The system was built on a robot tractor and commercial tractor. The result shown an average error of 5.2 cm and an RMS error of 2.9 cm when the laser was scanning beneath the robot tractor, which is sufficient for terrain surveying. The area where working characteristics is bad can be distinguished by the discriminant analysis using explanation variable of synthetic vector and inclination angle., The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Field robotics for promoting automated agriculture
NOGUCHI Noboru, 農林水産技術研究ジャーナル = Research Journal of Food and Agriculture, 28, 11, 5, 9, 01 Nov. 2005
農林水産技術情報協会, Japanese

2A1-S-001 Mapping of Field Environment using a Robot Tractor(Agriculture Robot and Mechatronics 1,Mega-Integration in Robotics and Mechatronics to Assist Our Daily Lives)
Yokota Masahiko, Mizushima Akira, Ishii Kazunobu, Noguchi Noboru, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2005, 163, 163, 09 Jun. 2005
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

2P1-S-006 Topography survey system for 3-D GIS map with using an unmanned helicopter(Agriculture Robot and Mechatronics 2,Mega-Integration in Robotics and Mechatronics to Assist Our Daily Lives)
Iwahori Takashi, Sugiura Ryo, Noguchi Noboru, Ishii Kazunobu, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2005, 207, 207, 09 Jun. 2005
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Barawid, O. C. Jr., Tsubota, R., Ishii, K., Noguchi, N.:"Agricultural autonomous vehicle that used 2-dimensional laser scanner as the navigation sensor", Proceedings of First Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture: 89-94(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Sugiura, R., Ishii, K., Noguchi, N.:"Development of Monitoring System to Support Operations of an Unmanned Helicopter". ASAE Paper No.051019(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Mizushima, A., Ishii, K., Noguchi, N.: "Development of Robot Tractor Using the Low-Cost GPS/INS System", ASAE Paper No.051138(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Sugiura, R., Ishii, K., Noguchi, N.:"Remote sensing technology for field information using an unmanned helicopter", Proceedings of First Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture: 187-192(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Yokota, M., Mizushima, A.,Ishii, K.,Noguchi, N.:"3-D GIS Map Generation Using a Robot Tractor with a Laser Scanner", ASAE Paper No.051141(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Iwahori, T., Sugiura, R., Ishii, K., Noguchi,N.:"Development of 3-D GIS Map Generation System Using an Unmanned Helicopter", ASAE Paper No.051020(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Ishii, K., Noguchi, N.:"Development of ECU for variable rate application using ISOBUS", Proceedings of First Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture: 59-64(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Tae-Hwan, K., Sugiura, R., Noguchi, N., Ishii, K., Niwa, K., Yokobori, J.:"Estimation of growth information on wheat using multi-spectrum image sensor", Proceedings of First Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture: 236-241(2005)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2005

Development of Remote Sensing System using an Unmanned Helicopter (part 2) : 3-dimensional field map generation
Sugiura R, Noguchi N, Ishii K, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2004, 206, 206, 18 Jun. 2004
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Yokobori,J.,Niwa,K.,Noguchi and N.,Chiba,Y:"Drawing of precise countermeasure map within a field by using unmanned helicopter image in Tokachi District", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:447-454(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Sugiura,R.,Fukagawa,T.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Crop Status Sensing System by a Multi-Spectral Imaging Sensor and GIS map generation", Proceedings of 2004 CIGR International Conference, [V-2-19(CD-ROM)](2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Mizushima,A.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Monitoring system of peat areas using agricultural robot", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:467-473(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Yokota,M.,Tsubota,R.,Mizushima,A.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Field Map Generation by an Intelligent Robot Tractor towards Information Agriculture", Proceedings of AgEng 2004[454(CD-ROM)](2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Noguchi,N: "Current Status and R&D Activities Utilizing Mechatronics in Agriculture in Japan", Proceedings of The second International Symposium on Machinery and Mechatronics for Agriculture and Bio-systems Engineering [ME-1(CD-ROM)](2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Mizushima,A.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Automatic navigation of agricultural vehicle using a low-cost attitude sensor", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 98-106(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Terao,H.,Noguchi,N. and Ishii,K.:"Multi-robot Systems for Farm Operations", Proceedings of International Scientific Conference on Microprocessor Systems in Agriculture:212-224(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Ishii, K.and Noguchi, N.:"Task management and control system for multi-robot using wireless LAN", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:56-63(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Yokota,M.,Mizushima,A.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"3-D map generation by a robot tractor equipped with a laser range finder", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:374-379(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Sugiura, R.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Remote sensing technology for field Information using an unmanned helicopter", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:226-231(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Sugiura,R.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Simplification method of topographic map using triangle polygons", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:474-479(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Iwahori,T.,Sugiura,R.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N:"Remote sensing using an unmanned helicopter with a control pan-head", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 220-225(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Tsubota,R.,Mizushima,A.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Automatic guidance with a laser scanner for a robot tractor in an orchard field", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:369-373 (2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Sugiura,R.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Remote Sensing Technology for 3-D Vegetation Monitoring using an Unmanned Helicopter", Proceedings of AgEng 2004[450(CD-ROM)](2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Sugiura,R.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Field Survey System Using an Unmanned Helicopter and Simplification of Topographic Dataset", Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Precision Agriculture(CD-ROM)(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N. and Reid,J.F.:"Automatic navigation of agricultural vehicle using a cheap attitude sensor", Proceedings of AgEng 2004[451(CD-ROM)](2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Tsubota,R.,Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N. and Reid,J.F:"Automatic Guidance with a Laser Scanner for a Robot Tractor in an Orchard Field", Proceedings of 2004 CIGR International Conference[V-2-9(CD-ROM)](2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Mizushima,A.,Tsubota,R. and Noguchi,N.:"3D-Map Generation by a Robot Tractor with a Laser Range Finder",Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Precision Agriculture(CD-ROM)(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Abe,M.,Sugiura,R.,Ishii,K. and Noguchi,N.:"Enhancement of satellite imagery using an unmanned helicopter for environment monitoring", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:232-237(2004)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004

Niwa,K.,Seino,N.,Yokobori,J.,Kukuchi,K. and Noguchi:"Drawing of precise countermeasure map concerned with wheat maturity by using large-scaled soil map in Tokachi District", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment・・・　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2004
Niwa,K.,Seino,N.,Yokobori,J.,Kukuchi,K. and Noguchi:"Drawing of precise countermeasure map concerned with wheat maturity by using large-scaled soil map in Tokachi District", Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:455-462(2004)*

未来型軽労化農業技術確立のための基盤技術(3)産業用無人ヘリコプタによる生育情報のセンシング技術
野口 伸, 農業および園芸, 78, 12, 1332, 1336, Dec. 2003
養賢堂, Japanese

Recognition and Understanding of Field Environment based on Remote-sensing
NOGUCHI N., 農業機械學會誌, 65, 4, 3, 3, 01 Jul. 2003
Japanese

Monitoring System of Crop Status sensed by Multi-Spectral Imaging Sensor
Fukagawa T., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2003, 15, 15, 2003
精密農法のための生物モニタリングシステムを構築した, R, G及びNIRの3波長画像を同時に取得できるマルチスペクトルイメージングセンサを用いている。稲, トウモロコシについてその画像処理アルゴリズムとセンシング精度について検討した。, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Co-operative Work by Two Robot Tractors based on a Laser Range Finder
Abe G., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2003, 15, 15, 2003
複数の農業用ロボットによる協調作業において, ロボットの相互認識が重要である。本研究では先行ロボットを認識するためにレーザ測距器を採用しパターンマッチングを行うことで追従ロボットが先行ロボットの姿勢を認識できるアルゴリズムを開発した。, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Remote Sensing Technology for Field Information Using Unmanned Helicopter : 3-D Topographic map generation by a laser range finder
Sugiura R., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2003, 14, 14, 2003
産業用無人ヘリコプタに搭載したレーザ距離計から農地の3次元点群を得ることができる。これら地表面上の点群を補間することによって地形マップを作成し, RTK-GPSによって正確に測量した地形データとの比較を行った。, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

産業用無人ヘリコプタを用いた空間情報のマッピング　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
農業機械学会北海道支部会報, 43, 49, 54, 2003

Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: Development of the Automatic Navigation System using DGPS and Posture Sensor. ASAE Paper No.033110 (2003)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

Kise,M.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: Obstacle Detection by a Laser Scanner for Autonomous Off-road Vehicles. ASAE Paper No.033111 (2003)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: Development of Navigation Sensor unit for the Agricultural Vehicle. Proceedings of IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics: 1067-1072(2003)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

Fukagawa,T.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: Detecting Growth of Crop System by Multi-spectral Imaging Sensor. ASAE Paper No.033125(2003)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

Sugiura,R.,Fukagawa,T.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.,Shibata,Y.,Toriyama,K. (2003) Field Information System using an Agricultural Helicopter towards Precision Farming. Proceedings of IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronic・・・　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003
Sugiura,R.,Fukagawa,T.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.,Shibata,Y.,Toriyama,K. (2003) Field Information System using an Agricultural Helicopter towards Precision Farming. Proceedings of IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics: 1073-1078(2003)*

Ishii,K.,Noguchi,N.,Terao,H.: Multi-robot Management System using Wireless LAN. ASAE Paper No. 033079(2003)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

Sugiura,R.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H. (2003) Development of Remote Sensing System using Unmanned Helicopter. ASAE Paper No.031104(2003)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

マルチスペクトルイメージングセンサを用いた生育モニタリングシステムの水稲への適用　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
農業機械学会北海道支部会報, 43, 37, 42, 2003

Noguchi,N.: Obstacle Detection for an Autonomous Vehicle using a Laser Range Finder. ASAE Paper No.031169(2003)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2003

The cooperation work by Master-Slave robot system
Horioka Y., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2002, 87, 87, 2002
農用移植ロボットを群として協調作業させることにより, 農作業の効率化と省力化を図ることを目的とする。2台のロボットトラクタを使用し, それらに意思決定者 (Master) と従事者 (Slave) という上下関係を持たせたシステムを想定している。2台の車両には光ファイバージャイロ (FOG) 及びRTK-GPSが搭載されており, 絶対座標や車両方位といった車両情報を取得し, 個々の車両情報は無線LANを用い車々間通信を行う。今回は主に2台のロボットトラクタの併走制御について報告する。, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Noguchi,N.,Kise,M.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.:Field Automation Using Robot Tractor. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 239-245(2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Kise,M.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: The Development of the Autonomous Tractor with Steering Controller Applied by Optimal Control. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 367-373(2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Will,J.D.,Reid,J.F.,Noguchi,N.,Zhang,Q.: Software Architecture Design for Automation of Off-road Equipment. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment:43-50 (2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Kise,M.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: Enhancement of Turning Accuracy by Path Planning for Robot Tractor. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 398-404(2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: Automatic Navigation of the Agricultural Vehicle by the Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 204-211(2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Sugiura,R.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.: The Development of Remote Sensing System Using Unmanned Helicopter. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 120-128(2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Noguchi,N.,Will,J.D.,Ishii,K.,Reid,J.F.:Development of Master-slave Robot System-Obstacle Avoidance Algorithm. Proceedings of ASAE Conference of Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment: 432-441(2002)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2002

Study on Autonomous Traveling Robot for Tilling Operations
行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 野口 伸, Technical report of the Institute of Agricultural Machinery, 32, 89, 96, Sep. 2001
生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構農業機械化研究所, English

耕うん作業を行う自律移動ロボットに関する研究
行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 野口 伸, 農業機械化研究所研究報告, 32, 1, 88, Sep. 2001
生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構農業機械化研究所, Japanese

2P2-J9 The Sensor Fusion Algorithm for Control of Agricultural Autonomous Vehicle
Kise M., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2001, 76, 76, 08 Jun. 2001
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

2P2-J7 Vision Intelligence based upon Multi-Spectral Imaging Sensor towards Precision Farming
Noguchi N., Miura R., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2001, 76, 76, 08 Jun. 2001
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

2P2-J5 Automatic navigation of the Agricultural Vehicle by Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope
Mizushima A., Noguchi N., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2001, 75, 75, 08 Jun. 2001
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

2P2-J8 Dynamic Path Planning for Agricultural Autonomous Vehicle
Noguchi N., Kise M., Ishii K., Terao H., ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2001, 76, 76, 08 Jun. 2001
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese

Engineering challenges and opportunities on field robotics
NOGUCHI Noboru, 農林水産技術研究ジャーナル, 24, 6, 5, 10, 01 Jun. 2001
農林水産技術情報協会, Japanese

ロボット群管理のための無線LANシステム構築
石井 一暢, 堀岡 裕二, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 247, 248, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

CANを用いたロボットトラクタの通信システム
石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 野口 伸, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 245, 246, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

農用移動ロボット協調作業のための制御アルゴリズム(第1報)
宮本 健太郎, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 273, 274, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

マシンビジョンを用いた作物の生育診断センサ
三浦 隆司, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 365, 366, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

NEDO地域コンソーシアムで開発したロボットトラクタ(第1報) : 自律作業システムの構築
木瀬 道夫, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 263, 264, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

NEDO地域コンソーシアムで開発したロボットトラクタ(第2報) : 動的経路生成法
野口 伸, 飯塚 学, 木瀬 道夫, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 265, 266, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

NEDO地域コンソーシアムで開発したロボットトラクタ(第3報) : 作業性能の評価, ユーザビリティと安全対策
石井 一暢, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 267, 268, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

地磁気方位センサと光ファイバージャイロスコープの航法センサ複合化による自動直進アルゴリズム(第2報)
水島 晃, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, 行本 修, 山本 聡史, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 277, 278, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

農用車両用作業ナビゲータ(第1報) : 目標仕様と概要
山本 聡史, 行本 修, 手島 司, 野口 伸, 農業機械学会年次大会講演要旨, 60, 447, 448, 01 Apr. 2001
Japanese

Noguchi,N.,Zhang,Q.,Han,S.,Reid,J.F.:"Autonomous Agricultural Tractor with an Intelligent Navigation System",Proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles:200-206(2001)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Noguchi,N.,Reid,J.F.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.:"Multi-spectrum Image Sensor for Detecting Crop Status by Robot Tractor", Proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles:115-120(2001)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Kise,M.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.:"Development of the Agricultural Autonomous Tractor with an RTK-GPS and Fog", Proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles:103-108(2001)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Noguchi,N.,Reid,J.F.,Zhang,Q.,Will,J.D.,Ishii,K.: "Development of Robot Tractor Based on RTK-GPS and Gyroscope", ASAE paper,01-1195: 1-8(2001)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Noguchi,N.,Reid,J.F.,Zhang,Q.,Will,J.D.: "Turning Function for Robot Tractor Based on Spline Function",ASAE paper,01-1196:1-8(2001)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Noguchi,N.,Reid,J.F.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.:"Crop Status Sensing based on Machine Vision for Precision Farming", Proceedings of the 2nd IFAC/CIGR Workshop on Intelligent Control for Agricultural Applications:34-39(2001)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.:"Turning Function Based on Dynamic Path Creation for Agricultural Mobile Robot",Proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles:193-199(2001)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.,Yukumoto,O.,Yamamoto,S.:"Automatic Guidance System based on Sensor Fusion with Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope", Proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles: 109-114(2・・・　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001
Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.,Yukumoto,O.,Yamamoto,S.:"Automatic Guidance System based on Sensor Fusion with Geomagnetic Direction Sensor and Gyroscope", Proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles: 109-114(2001)*

Noguchi,N.,Kise,M.,Reid,J.F.,Zhang,Q.:"Autonomous Vehicle Based on GPS and Inertial Sensors",Proceedings of the 2nd IFAC/CIGR Workshop on Intelligent Control for Agricultural Applications:105-110(2001)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2001

1P1-04-008 マシンビジョンを用いた窒素ストレスの計測
石井 一暢, 飯田 岳, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2000, 46, 46, 2000
本研究はマシンビジョンを使用することで, リアルタイムに作物の窒素栄養ストレスを検出可能なセンサを開発することを目的としている。屋外環境下で使用するセンサの開発は, 計測する光エネルギ波長域の決定, 光源の変化にともなう外乱の補償が重要な鍵を握る。波長域の決定には, 分光測色計を用いて作物葉面の反射率を計測し, SPAD値と相関の高い波長域を決定した。光源変化には, 近赤外領域分光を用いて太陽の日射量を推定することで入出力エネルギ変化の補償を行った。, 一般社団法人日本機械学会, Japanese

1P1-04-006 ナビゲーションマップに基づいたほ場作業のロボット化
木瀬 道夫, 野口 伸, 石井 一暢, 寺尾 日出男, ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集, 2000, 46, 46, 2000
本研究は水田作・畑作・牧草作業における1年間の農作業すべてに作用できる農用移動ロボットの開発を目的としている。そのためには作業ロボットが広範な作業速度に対応できる必要がある。本研究ではRTK-GPSと光ファイバージャイロを航法センサに用いて作業速度2.0m/sでの自律作業を実現した。またほ場ナビゲーションマップをGISによって生成し, マップに基づいたガイダンスシステムにより各種作業を自律化した。, 一般社団法人日本機械学会, Japanese

マシンビジョンと精密圃場管理
野口伸, 今月の農業, 12, 27, 31, 2000
化学工業日報社

Noguchi,N.,Kise,M.,Ishii,K. and Terao,H.: Dynamic Path Planning based on Spline Function for Agricultural Mobile Robot, Proceedings of the XIV Memorial CIGR World Congress,943-946(2000)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2000

Pinto,F.A.C,Reid,J.F,Zhang,Q.and Noguchi,N.:"Vision Sensor Position For Guidance by Using Pose-Guidance Algorithm(PGA)", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology and Intelligent Control for Bioproducti・・・　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2000
Pinto,F.A.C,Reid,J.F,Zhang,Q.and Noguchi,N.:"Vision Sensor Position For Guidance by Using Pose-Guidance Algorithm(PGA)", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology and Intelligent Control for Bioproduction Systems,173-177(2000)*

Noguchi,N. and Reid,J.F.:"Engineering Challenges in Agricultural Mobile Robot towards Information Agriculture", Proceedings of the XIV Memorial CIGR World Congress,147-154(2000)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2000

Kise,M.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K. and Terao,H.:"Communication Systems forMulti Robot Systems", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology and Intelligent Control for Bioproduction Systems:82-85(2000)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2000

Pinto,F.A.C,Reid,J.F,Zhang,Q. and Noguchi,N.:"Pose-Guidance Algorithm Performance for Different Crop Stages of Development", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology and Intelligent Control for Bioprod・・・　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2000
Pinto,F.A.C,Reid,J.F,Zhang,Q. and Noguchi,N.:"Pose-Guidance Algorithm Performance for Different Crop Stages of Development", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology and Intelligent Control for Bioproduction Systems,167-172(2000)*

Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.,Yukumoto,O. and Yamamoto,S.:"Automatic Guidance Composed of GeoMagnetic Direction Sensor and Fiber Optic Gyroscope", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology a・・・　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
2000
Mizushima,A.,Noguchi,N.,Ishii,K.,Terao,H.,Yukumoto,O. and Yamamoto,S.:"Automatic Guidance Composed of GeoMagnetic Direction Sensor and Fiber Optic Gyroscope", Proceedings of 2nd IFAC/CIGR International Workshop on Bio-Robotics, Information Technology and Intelligent Control for Bioproduction Systems, 311-315(2000)*

Zhang, Q., Reid,J., Noguchi, N.: “Agricultural Vehicle Navigation using Multiple Guidance Sensors", Proceedings of FSR'99 International Conference on Field and Service Robotics:1-6(1999)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1999

Noguchi,N: "Work Schedule Creation for Agriculturral Mobile Robots using Genetic Algorithms", Proceedings of 1999 IFAC World Congress:425-429(1999)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1999

Noguchi,N., Reid,J., Hansen,A., Zhang,Q., Tian,L.: "Vision Intelligence for an Autonomous Vehicle based on an artificial Neural Network, Fuzzy Logic and a Genetic Algorithm", Proceedings of 1999 IFAC World Congress:419-424(1999)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1999

Pinto, F.A.C., Reid,J., Zhang,Q., Noguchi,N.:“Guidance Parameter Determination using Artificial Neural Network Classifier", ASAE Paper 993004:1-10(1999)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1999

Zhang, Q., Reid,J., Noguchi,N.:“Automated Guidance Control for Agricultural Tractors using Redundant Sensors", SAE Technical Paper 1999-01-1874: 1-5(1999)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1999

農用移動ロボットの開発に関する基礎研究
野口 伸, 農業機械學會誌, 60, 3, 2, 2, 01 May 1998
Japanese

Noguchi, N., Reid, J., Benson, E., Stombaugh, T.: Vision Intelligence for an Agricultural Mobile Robot using A Neural Network, Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture; 152-157 (1998)*　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1998

Noguchi, N., Reid, J., Will, J., Benson, E., Stombaugh, T.: Vehicle Automation System based on Multi-sensor Integration, ASAE Paper No.983111:1-10(1998)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1998

Noguchi, N., Reid, J., Zhang, Q., Tian, L.:Vision Intelligence for Precision Farming using Fuzzy Logic Optimized Genetic Agorithm and Artificial Neural Network, ASAE Paper No.983034: 1-10(1998)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1998

農業ロボットに使用される車輛制御法 (特集 進展する農業ロボット)
野口 伸, 行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 自動化技術, 29, 1, 71, 75, Jan. 1997
工業調査会, Japanese

Noguchi, N., Matsuo, Y., Suzuki, M. : "Development of a Tillage Robot uisng a Position Sensing Sysytem and a Geomagnetic Direction Sensor", ASAE No. 973090 : 1-12 (1997)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1997

Creation of Optimal Route for Agricultural Vehicle and Construction Machinery by Using Genetic Algorithm
NOGUCHI Noboru, TERAO Hideo, 計測自動制御学会論文集, 30, 1, 64, 71, 31 Jan. 1994
計測自動制御学会, Japanese

Cone resistance measuring system for generating cone resistance distribution map
K. Ohmiya, N. Noguchi, H. Terao, Journal of Terramechanics, 30, 3, 181, 190, 1993
To investigate soil physical conditions affected by soil compaction or tillage, a computer controlled cone resistance measuring system and visualization software for generating cone resistance distribution maps were developed. A cone resistance measuring system was developed so that the coordinates of the measuring point were chosen at any location in a 1.5 × 2 m horizontal x-y plane. Then, using, a series of cone resistances with x, y, z coordinates was measured. A portable computer was selected to measure and acquire the series of cone resistances. This computer was used to set the location of the cone, to operate a strain amplifier for measuring cone resistance and to measure the location of data. The visualization software generates two- and three-dimensional maps. x-z, y-z and x-y cross section are generated in two-dimensional maps. Plane and view point may be selected from a three-dimensional map. Using this system, cone resistance of 1.5 m with × 2.0 m length × 0.6 m depth in several fields was measured. Cone resistance distribution maps of two and three dimensions were generated by the visualization software. It was concluded that two- and three-dimensional distribution maps gave us information that we could not obtain from a map of one cross section. © 1993., English

アルコール・軽油二燃料噴射式機関の農用トラクタへの応用に関する研究(第3報)
野口 伸, 酒井 太朗, 寺尾 日出男, 農業機械学会誌, 54, 4, 19, 27, 1992

Land Clearing by a Shredding Machine
近江谷 和彦, 松見 高俊, 野口 伸, 寺尾 日出男, 北海道大学農学部邦文紀要, 15, 3, 242, 248, 26 Mar. 1987
北海道大学, Japanese

Gasohol and is Application to a Small Spark Ignition Engine for Farm Use
寺尾 日出男, 近江谷 和彦, 松見 高俊, 野口 伸, Memoirs of the Faculty of Agriculture,Hokkaido University, 15, 2, p173, 185, 1987
北海道大学, Japanese

農業ロボットの最前線 : 生産性向上・人手不足解消による農業の持続的発展
野口 伸
シーエムシー出版, Nov. 2020, 9784781315621, ix, 357p, Japanese, [Editor]

図解でよくわかるスマート農業のきほん : 最新農業の基礎からドローン技術習得、作業記録と生産管理、新規参入まで
野口 伸
誠文堂新光社, Oct. 2020, 9784416520970, 159p, Japanese, [Editor]

農業食料工学ハンドブック = Handbook of agricultural machinery and food engineers
農業食料工学会
コロナ社, Apr. 2020, 9784339052671, xii, 1092p, Japanese, [Joint editor]

スマート農業の現場実装と未来の姿
野口 伸
北海道協同組合通信社, Nov. 2019, 9784864530682, 207p, Japanese, [Editor]

新スマート農業 : 進化する農業情報利用
農業情報学会
農林統計出版, May 2019, 9784897324074, xxiv, 500p, Japanese, [Joint editor]

スマート農業 : 自動走行、ロボット技術、ICT・AIの利活用からデータ連携まで
神成, 淳司
エヌ・ティー・エス, Mar. 2019, 9784860435844, iv, xii, 399, viip, 図版xiip, Japanese, [Contributor]

ロボット制御ハンドドック　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸, 農用車両ロボット
近代科学社, 2017, [Contributor]

人と協働するロボット革命最前線　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸
エヌ・ティー・エス, 2016, [Contributor]

自動車オートパイロット開発最前線　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸, ロボットトラクタの開発
エヌティエス, 2015, [Contributor]

IoT/CPS/M2M応用市場とデバイス・材料技術　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸
S&T出版, 2015, [Contributor]

スマート農業　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸
農林統計出版, Aug. 2014, [Contributor]

)Agricultural Automation - Fundamentals and practices　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸
CRC Press, 2013, [Contributor]

太陽光植物工場の新展開　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸
養賢堂, Apr. 2012, [Joint editor]

Agricultural Robots - Mechanisms and Practice -　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Kyoto University Press, 2011

地理空間情報の基本と活用　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
古今書院, 2009

農業ロボット（II）　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
中国農業大学出版, 2009

農業ロボット（Ｉ）　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
中国農業大学出版, 2009

精密農業　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
朝倉書店, 2006

農業ロボット（Ⅱ）　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
コロナ社, 2006

測量工学ハンドブック　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
野口 伸
朝倉書店, 2005, [Contributor]

新農業環境工学　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
養賢堂, 2004

新農業情報工学　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
養賢堂, 2004

農業ロボット（Ⅰ）　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
コロナ社, 2004

生物生産のための制御工学　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
朝倉書店, 2003

21世紀最新の農業機械　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
北海道協同組合通信社, 2002

ファイテクHow to みる・きく・はかる　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
養賢堂, 2002

営農支援のためのデータ収集・管理及びその活用に関する研究
渡部克彦, 岡田啓嗣, 杉江一磨, 石井一暢, 野口伸, 岡本博史
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 04 Sep. 2017, Japanese

田植機自動操舵のためのマシンビジョンによる走行マーカー列検出に関する研究
瀬水捷, 野口伸, 石井一暢, 岡本博史
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 04 Sep. 2017, Japanese

農業におけるG空間ビッグデータ収集・分析・活用による高度営農支援プラットフォームの構築
野口伸, 岡本博史, 岡田啓嗣, 澁谷幸憲, 原圭祐
電子情報通信学会大会講演論文集(CD-ROM), 29 Aug. 2017, Japanese

田植機の自動制御に関する研究
渡部克彦, 岡本博史, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 20 May 2016, Japanese

ドローンを用いたロボットボートのナビゲーションに関する研究
梁凌光, 劉羽飛, 岡本博史, 石井一暢, 野口伸
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 20 May 2016, Japanese

低コスト3次元カメラを用いた圃場マッピングシステムの開発
岡田麻友子, 岡本博史, 加藤友彬, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 20 May 2016, Japanese

マシンビジョンによる走行マーカー列追従型田植機自動操舵
川人寛子, 岡本博史, 江戸俊介, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 20 May 2016, Japanese

ロボットトラクタの走行性能と安全性に関する研究
曾雌弘平, 野口伸, 石井和暢, 岡本博史
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 20 May 2016, Japanese

2台のロボットトラクタによる協調作業システムの開発
ZHANG Chi, 曾雌弘平, 野口伸
計測自動制御学会システムインテグレーション部門講演会(CD-ROM), 14 Dec. 2015, Japanese

農業におけるG空間ビッグデータ収集・分析・活用による高度営農支援プラットフォームの構築
岡本博史, 野口伸
日本写真測量学会学術講演会発表論文集, 29 Oct. 2015, Japanese

農業ロボットの社会実装に向けた課題と展望
野口伸
日本生物環境工学会大会講演要旨, 2015, Japanese

RTK‐GPSを用いた普通型コンバインの自動化に関する研究
中村聡宏, YANG Liangliang, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業環境工学関連学会合同大会講演要旨集(CD-ROM), 2015, Japanese

レーザースキャナを用いた除草剤散布用ロボットボートの開発について
鹿野智久, LIU Yufei, 野口伸, 岡本博史, 石井一暢
農業環境工学関連学会合同大会講演要旨集(CD-ROM), 2015, Japanese

走行マーカー列画像認識による田植機自動操舵
川人寛子, 岡本博史, 江戸俊介, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業環境工学関連学会合同大会講演要旨集(CD-ROM), 2015, Japanese

ロボットとビッグデータの融合技術
野口伸
日本農業工学会シンポジウム, 2015, Japanese

人工標識の画像認識による田植機の自動操舵
江戸俊介, 岡本博史, 川人寛子, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業環境工学関連学会合同大会講演要旨集(CD-ROM), 2015, Japanese

低コストゲーミングセンサを用いた作物生育の3次元計測
加藤友彬, 岡本博史, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業環境工学関連学会合同大会講演要旨集(CD-ROM), 2015, Japanese

準天頂衛星LEX信号を用いた衛星測位のロボットトラクタへの応用
柿木政人, YANG Liangliang, 野口伸, 岡本博史
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 15 May 2014, Japanese

ほ場センシングマップ生成のためのプラットフォーム設計・開発
江口岳人, 岡本博史, 野口伸
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 15 May 2014, Japanese

GNSSを航法センサとしたロボットトラクタ
野口伸
Text for GPS/GNSS Symposium, 2014, Japanese

低空リモートセンシングとGISによる湖沼の水質評価
江口岳人, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 01 Sep. 2013, Japanese

準天頂衛星LEX信号を用いたPPP測位のロボットトラクタへの応用
柿木政人, YANG Liangliang, 野口伸, 石井一暢
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 01 Sep. 2013, Japanese

農用マルチカメラシステム構築のためのソフトウェアフレームワーク設計開発
諏訪友紀, 岡本博史, 野口伸
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 01 Sep. 2013, Japanese

水田用ロボットボートに関する研究
遊佐健, LIU Yufei, 野口伸, 岡本博史, 石井一暢
農業食料工学会年次大会講演要旨, 01 Sep. 2013, Japanese

日本学術会議における植物工場に関する大規模研究計画
野口伸, 野並浩, 高山弘太郎, 大政謙二, 橋本康
日本生物環境工学会大会講演要旨, 2013, Japanese

家畜ふん尿を由来とする高純度バイオメタンの利活用システム構築と流通可能性
保井聖一, 野口伸, 河畑俊明
農業農村工学会大会講演会講演要旨集, 01 Sep. 2012, Japanese

「農業用移動ロボツトの作業計画とナビゲーション」　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
『日本機械学会ROBOMEC '96 講演論文集』, 1996

Control and analysis for formation of water environment using spatial information
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
2008 - 2012
NOGUCHI Noboru, HIRANO Takashi, HATANO Ryusuke, YAMADA Hiroyuki, ISHII Kazunobu, KAIZU Yutaka
Marshes are important parts of ecosystems and play an important role in maintenance of ecosystems. In this research, serials methods were established to monitor water quality of lakes and marshes based on remote sensing and GIS. In addition, the relationship between the land use and water quality has been analyzed. Firstly, a robot boat was developed to automatically and efficiently acquire water quality by grid sampling. And law-altitude unmanned helicopter remote sensing platform and water quality model were also provided. The result of the relationship between water quality changes and land use shows that the deterioration of the water quality has become serious with the deepening of the planting season.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), Hokkaido University, 20248027

バーチャルリアリティを適用した農業ロボットの知能化手法の開発
科学研究費助成事業
2008 - 2009
野口 伸, 岡本 博史
本研究は人間の農作業に関わる知を構造化・一般化してロボットの知能として活用できる方法論を探求する。マルチスペクトルビジョンセンサをベースにしたステレオビジョンを構成してロボットに装備し,作業と同時に農地環境情報を収集する。バーチャルリアリティ(VR)を介して圃場内の様子を高い臨場感のもとで再生できるシステムを開発し,知識のインタープリタとして機能させる。
1)ハイパースペクトルカメラによる有用情報の抽出
ハイパースペクトルビジョンセンサによって植物の生育情報や雑草の繁茂状態など有用情報を自動抽出できる方法論を開発した。分光情報についてPLS回帰分析を行い,情報抽出に有効な光波長を同定して回帰モデルを構築した。今年度はオレンジ熟度,農薬残存量,雑草識別などについて高い精度で認識できる方法論を確立した。
2)VRによる空間情報記述法の開発
取得した画像情報をRTK-GPS,姿勢角センサ(IMU)による位置データの属性として取り扱い,世界測位系WGS84で表現される3次元画像空間が表現できるソフトウェアを開発した。また,共同研究者岡本がValparaiso University電子工学科に勤務する協力研究者Will博士を訪問して,VRの空間情報記述法について情報交換して計算負荷が小さいアルゴリズムを考案した。
3)データベースによる知の蓄積と自動整理
人間の意志決定が生育状態,土壌状態など様々なデータを融合して行われることに基づき,ロボットが周辺画像を取得・解析して有用情報に変換した後で,データベースに自動的に蓄積できるシステム開発を行った。
日本学術振興会, 挑戦的萌芽研究, 北海道大学, 20658060

Information Processing and Control for Multi-agent Farming Robots
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
2004 - 2006
NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu
Increases in the productivity of agriculture have resulted in a decline in the skilled machine operator work force, particularly in Japan. The average age of the agricultural workforce is increasing, indicating that this profession is not being passed on to the younger generations. Therefore, the development of automated or autonomous agricultural equipment is considered to be of commercial significance and societal importance. The objectives of the study are the operation and control of autonomous mobile robots for farming operation. One of the goals of this study is to investigate the use of mobile robots with as little as possible centralized control.
The key solution to this decentralization problem is to give more autonomy to the vehicles to allow them to cope with unexpected events and obstacles, inaccurate environment model, other vehicles, and so on. This high level of autonomy is achieved using advanced sensor-based capabilities (for localization, obstacle detection and modeling) as well as planning and deliberation between the robots through local communication and coordination. In such context, multi-agent type farming robots needs some essential functions to attain the farm operation. In the research, following required subsystems which contribute to multi-agent farming robots were developed and tested.
-obstacle detection and avoidance system,
-real-time machine vision system of detecting crop growth,
-a leading robot and a following robot based on local sensing,
-task planning for multi-field robots operation.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Hokkaido University, 16380174

Soft-sensing technology for bioinstrumentation by speaking plant approach in XML environment
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
2003 - 2005
MURASE Haruhiko, FUJIURA Tateshi, SHIBUSAWA Sakae, SHIMIZU Hiroshi, NOGUCHI Noboru, HATO Kenji
2006 fiscal is the year to finalize this research project. The overall objectives of this research project were to implement the speaking plant approach in plant growth control, management and monitoring, and to collect plant biological information by means of soft-sensing techniques together with XML communication scheme. A large scale trial project was launched in order to demonstrate the behavior of the entire system built by this project. The scenario of the trial project is the following : 1) to fabricate three simulated buildings, 2) to cover appropriate roof tops and side walls with Sunagoke moss greening materials, 3) to install an irrigation system with biological information feed back control system built in a FIELD SERVER, 4) to install XML server for the control of the irrigation system, 5) to establish internet based control and monitoring system. The software development group (Murase and Shimizu) developed a general platform for SPA soft-sensing system. Four research subgroups namely, plant factory technology, plant physiology, post-harvest, and Microsystems worked together to build a sensor fusion system applying techniques specialized in each field. The web based SPA sensor system consisting of sensor elements with their own global IP on PVN architecture was developed by subgroup leaders, Oke, Hirafuji and Shimizu to assemble a customized FIELD SERVER.
The trial system was designed to verify the systematic operation with a single variable describing moss physiology which is the water status of moss. It is seldom possible to measure water status of moss using direct non destructive measuring technique. This is a situation which requires an alternative soft-sensing technique. A 2D thermoviewer camera was used to measure the surface temperature of moss canopy. The acquired data were sent to the XML server. The water status of moss was analysed using a neural network estimator successfully so that the irrigation system was controlled properly to maintain required water status of moss on the building wall It must be noted that the customized field server provided not only moss canopy temperature but also environmental conditions such as humidity, air temperature, solar radiation, barometer, wind speed and direction. Those environmental conditions were referred in the neural network decision system for irrigation. The project was successfully finalized. The part of project was televised by one of major TV networks on Oct. 12, 2004.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), Osaka Prefecture University, 15208024

Network Robot Tractors Associating with Human
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
2002 - 2005
TERAO Hideo, NOGUCHI Noboru, ISHII Kazunobu, TANI Hiroshi, OHMIYA Kazuhiko
Agricultural remote sensing typically uses broadband multi-spectral images, which have a spectral range from visible to near infrared. A satellite imaging system has the distinct disadvantage of a large time delay between image acquisition and end use. Re-examination of a field using satellite imagery often requires more time than what is desired due to the repeat cycle of the satellite ; particularly when using remote sensing to assess the condition of short maturity crops such as lettuce. In addition to the temporal resolution being less than desirable, the spatial resolution of satellite images is relatively poor. Water vapor in the atmosphere often affects the apparent spectral radiance incident at the sensor ; consequently, it is often impossible to use remote sensing information in cloudy or overcast conditions. To solve these problems, we developed a remote sensing system based on an unmanned helicopters as a tool for crop status sensing. They can offer significant solutions to the drawbacks associated with other remote sensing methods. The helicopter can compensate for the lack of spatial resolution due to its capacity for low altitude flight. In addition, helicopter-base remote sensing systems could have a high timeliness value. In addition, the 3-D image mapping algorithm was also developed. As an application for the integrated remote-sensing system, a combine-harvesting system by estimating wheat maturity has been developed. Effectiveness of the system was proved by conducting a field test in "Tokachi" area.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY, 14206029

無人ヘリコプタをプラットフォームとした農地空間の情報化に関する日米共同研究の企画
科学研究費助成事業
2003 - 2003
野口 伸, 水島 晃, 谷 宏, 石井 一暢
近年,超高解像度衛星画像が実用化し,食糧生産のためのセンシングデバイスとしての期待も大きい.しかし衛星画像は,曇天,雨天時は有効でない,画像データを手元にするまで時差がある,画像分解能が低いなど生産技術に適用するには課題が多い.一方車載センサも画像取得の高度が低すぎて,画像データが膨大になる,潅水状態やぬかるみなどで車両を圃場に入れることができない場合が多い.特に,稲作で生育情報がほしい梅雨時期は,衛星ベース,地上ベースとも問題を抱えている.本研究は,日本に適したリモートセンシングのプラットフォームとして無人ヘリコプタに着目し,ヘリコプタベースのリモートセンシングシステムの開発を目指している.しかし,無人ヘリコプタの操縦は免許を必要とし,安定して飛行させることは容易でない.このような背景から,ヘリコプタベースシステムの場合,高度な制御系の開発が重要課題であるため,マサチューセッツ工科大学(MIT)航空宇宙学科との共同研究を企画した.『ヘリコプタによる農地情報の効率的な収集』と『タイムリーなリモートセンシング』の両立を目標設定した場合に,どのようなトータルシステム設計が必要で,その中の要素課題はなにか,今年度は研究調査に主眼をおいた。2003年10月にMIT航空宇宙工学科Feron助教授を招聘して,共同研究の企画会議を開いた。産業界からは産業用無人ヘリコプタを製造販売しているヤマハ発動機,ヤンマー農機に参加頂いた。次年度以降の共同研究テーマとして自動着陸機能,ローカルエリアの高精度測位技術の開発を設定することになった。併せて,農業機械学会主催の元,10月17日にセミナー「安全で安心な社会に貢献する産業用無人ヘリコプタ」を80名程度の参加者の元で科学技術振興事業団研究成果活用プラザ北海道において開催した。
日本学術振興会, 基盤研究(C), 北海道大学, 15638008

Network Robot Tractors Associating with Human
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
2001 - 2003
NOGUCHI Noboru
The goal of the research is to make the vehicle follow the leading vehicle at a given relative distance and a given angle. The 2-D laser range finder (SICK Co.ltd.) mounted on the front of the follower can provide the outline of the leading vehicle and some noises. To make the follower recognize the leading vehicle, pattern recognition method was adopted in the algorithm. two-dimensional shape of the leading vehicle as a template was made by surveying with a total-station. The basic idea of the algorithm is to measure the relative angle and range from the follower to the leading vehicle in each control step of the follower. The 2-D laser range finder can sense the range to obstacles within 80 m and over 180 deg. The developed algorithm can provide these navigation signals at update rate of 10 Hz by matching a template with an actual range data set. Then, the control algorithm for both lateral and longitudinal motions was also developed. Lateral error is controlled by steering and longitudinal motion is controlled by transmission and engine speed change. Finally, we investigated our vehicle follower control algorithm by field tests. The leading vehicle was driven by human and the following algorithm was installed to our robot tractor. The follower could track the leading vehicle under various given offset and distance. To evaluate the following accuracy, a RTK/GPS and a Fiber Optic Gyroscope were mounted on both the leading vehicle and the follower. The overall tracking error indicated about 10 cm of lateral and 3 deg of offset angle.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY, 13660251

屋外環境下における生物生産インフォトロニクスに関する日米共同研究の企画
科学研究費助成事業
2002 - 2002
野口 伸, 岡本 博史, 石井 一暢, 片岡 崇, 土肥 誠, 芋生 憲司
本申請課題の日米共同研究は屋外環境下の先進農業技術の今後の方向性を『自動化』と『情報化』に求め,センサ,制御系,モデリング,通信システムなどの要素技術のオープン化を進めるとともに,インフォトロニクスの概念に基づくトータルシステムのプラットフォーム開発を目指したものである。『自動化』と『情報化』を究極に進めた生物生産システムの構築を目標設定した場合に,どのようなプラットフォームが必要で,その中の個別要素開発は今どこまで進捗しているのか,今年度は研究調査に主眼をおき実施した。個別要素技術の積み重ねにより構成されたトータルシステムは,一般に非効率・不経済になる恐れがある。そこで目標トータルシステムを設定し,そのトータルシステムを構築するうえで必要となるサブシステムを完備するといったトップダウンな研究戦略をとった。研究代表者・分担者は札幌において3回の研究会を実施し,GPSなどの周辺技術の動向を調査した。また,海外共同研究者との具体的な課題設定のために,「Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment(ATOE2002)」国際会議と併せて全メンバーによる共同研究推進会議を米国シカゴで開催し,研究テーマ設定と共同研究の立ち上げを行った。
AT0E2002会議は米国農業工学会(ASAE)主催の下,本研究課題に参画したメンバーが組織委員会を構成して,2002年7月26,27日に開催された。この会議はオフロード走行車両の自動化・情報化に関わる国際会議で,センサ,モデリング,通信システム,ユーザーインターフェース,制御系設計,マルチロボット,事例研究など基礎から応用まで幅広く取り扱った。世界中から75件の講演があり,この会議を通して具体的に共同研究課題を設定することができた。
日本学術振興会, 基盤研究(C), 北海道大学, 14606005

Development of PF Systems Using Field Environmental Sensors based on Multi-spectrum Machine Vision
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
1998 - 2001
TERAO Hideo, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru
The objective of the research was to develop a machine vision, which could detect crop status. Crop status including crop health and growth was one of the most important information for promoting precision agriculture. The vision system was able to estimate both chlorophyll content and crop growth parameter composed of crop height and leaf area by calculating Leaf Color Index (LCI) and Vegetation Cover Ratio (VCR) from the image. Finally, the developed vision system was installed on an unmanned helicopter. The helicopter-base sensing system was able to effectively gather field information compared to a general ground-base system.

In order to sense the crop status and efficiently conduct field operation through the timely information, the real-time vision sensor was developed. The R-G-NIR machine vision (MS2100, Duncan Tec.) was adopted to the vision sensor hardware. In this research, an estimator of the chlorophyll content and crop growth used LCI and VCR as input parameter. The VCR defined as ratio of leaf area to whole image area had significantly high correlation with crop height. In addition, the relationship between vision information and yield was also investigated. Actual Growth Index (AGI) which was product of LCI with VCR was defined to express the absolute volume of chlorophyll content. High correlation between AGI and yield, which was R^2 of 0.684, was obtained in the filed experiment. Therefore, it was concluded that the vision system could estimate yield before harvest.

This study developed a system that can generate a GIS map regarding crop status obtained by the vision sensor (MS2100) mounted on an unmanned helicopter. As for the unmanned helicopter used in this research, an RTK-GPS was adopted as a positioning sensor, and an inertial sensor that provides posture (roll and pitch angles) was installed in the helicopter. When obtaining the image by the vision sensor on the helicopter, sonic distortions caused by change of helicopter's posture arise in the image. In order to remove this distortion, geometric correction by converting from image coordinate to global coordinate was badly needed. By applying geometric correction to the image, it was possible to generate a map including maximum error of 29 cm. This accuracy was high enough to utilize this helicopter-base sensing system to Precision Farming.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY, 10460111

DGPSを中核とした農用移動ロボット群の作業計画・管理システムに関する研究
科学研究費助成事業
1996 - 1998
野口 伸
1. DGPSを用いた位置認識システムの開発
移動ロボットの開発過程で最も重大に課題は,車両の位置認識システムに他ならない.特に本研究は複数の移動ロボットを同時に制御・管理することを目的としているため,各研究機関で開発途上にある1台の移動ロボットに1台の位置認識装置を必要とする方式を採用することは得策でない.そこで本研究は,DGPSを採用した位置認識システムを開発した.
2.作業計画生成のための作業管理者との対話型インターフェースの構築
意志決定者(農家・コントラクタなど)が各ロボットの作業内容・作業経路を決定し,そのタスク内容を移動ロボットに指令できるヒューマンインターフェースを開発した.対象とする複数のほ場区画の地図がコンピュータのディスプレイ上に展開され,意志決定者との対話方式で作業方法を決めるヒューマンインターフェースで,ロボットが作業走行するに必要十分な作業仕様(内容,経路など)を決定する機能を有する.
日本学術振興会, 基盤研究(C), 北海道大学, 08660306

Multi-Purpose Mobile Robot for Precision Farming
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
1995 - 1997
TERAO Hideo, ZHANG Shu-huai, ISHII Kazunobu, NOGUCHI Noboru, OHMIYA Kazuhiko
The purpose of the study is to develop automation system for agricultural production. We aim to build technology of an agricultural mobile robot, which is able to conduct agricultural work in the same quality with a skilled worker. The developed robot can travel alone in a field, and automatically acquire the field environmental information related to soil and crop during the travel. The results obtained in the research project are follows :
1)Design and Fabrication of Model Vehicle
The model vehicle, which was satisfied with requirements for utilizing a mobile robot, was developed. The specifications and basic performance were studied.
2)Development of Navigation System Using a Geomagnetic Direction Sensor (GDS)
To precisely control the robot using only orientation data obtained by the GDS,the navigation system using the GDS was developed. The refining method, which was able to compensate the geomagnetic warp surrounding the robot, was built using an Artificial Neural Network.
3)Development of Navigation System Using a Positioning System Based on Machine Vision
The positioning system based on machine vision was developed to know the robot position in real time. The measurement principle is triangulation by setting the two vision sensors on the field that can automatically track the robot movement and measure the angle from the base line of the field. The navigation system using the positioning system and the GDS was build, and the robot performance was investigated by field tests.
4)Sensor Development of Corn Resistance and Crop Growth
The sensor system, which could automatically measure corn resistance, was developed to evaluate soil compaction of a field by the robot. Because the sensor system attached on the mobile robot can acquire the corn resistance and the position at the same time, the spatial map of the corn resistance can be created, and the soil compaction of the field can be evaluated on a computer screen. In addition, to evaluate the crop growth variability on a field, a crop growth sensor based on machine vision was developed. The sensor can segment crop and weed areas using a Fuzzy Logic created by a Genetic Algorithm. Then, the sensor can individually predict the crop growth such as the height and the width.
5)Development of Communication System
To utilize the field information such as corn resistance and crop growth for crop management, the communication system between the mobile robot and the base station was built.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY, 07456110

フィールド空間の情報化　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1996
Competitive research funding

Field informatics　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1996
Competitive research funding

多目的最適化理論を適用した農作業スケジューリング法に関する研究
科学研究費助成事業
1995 - 1995
野口 伸
1.農用移動ロボットを用いて複合作業を行うための作業計画問題をGAによって解決を計った.採草作業を例に作業計画を生成た.本法はGAを階層的に適用することにより,仕事量と作業時間を目的関数として,2種類,3台のロボットの効率的な作業計画を生成することができた.GAで生成された作業計画は,ランダムに作業を行った場合と比較して,消費エネルギを56%に節約できた.一方,作業時間を目的関数に設定した時には,作業待ち時間を大幅に減少させることができるために,作業時間を51%に短縮できた.
2.重みづけTchebycheffノルム法を併用することにより,仕事量と作業時間の2目的の最適化問題に拡張し,満足できる作業計画が生成できた.加えて,実際の作業従事者によって作成された計画と比較しても,同程度の質であることが確認できた.
3.人間の作業計画立案時の意思決定メカニズムを考察するために,熟練作業者の仕事量と作業時間の重み係数行列を逆解析した.被験者全員について作業時間の重み係数は0.9を超える値を示し,人間による機械運用の計画立案時には作業時間を重視し,仕事量をほとんど考慮していないことが推察された.したがって,本法を拡張することによって,ヒューマンライクな作業計画も生成可能である.
4.今後は実機による検証実験を行うことで,その有効性を検証すると共に,系を拡張して,さらに大規模問題に適用することが必要である.
日本学術振興会, 奨励研究(A), 北海道大学, 07760237

農林産バイオマスを燃料とするガス機関のCMACによる適応制御
科学研究費助成事業
1993 - 1993
野口 伸
1.多種燃料対応型ガス機関の試作と性能モデリング
(1)農産廃棄物を嫌気性発酵して生成されたバイオガスを有効利用できるガス機関を試作した.横型水冷ディーゼル機関をベース機関として,ガス燃料を吸気管内に予混合できる供給装置を試作した.また,軽油噴射量,噴射時期を制御するために,本来の燃料である軽油噴射系に改造を施し,噴射時期可変タイマーを装備した列型噴射ポンプに交換した.以上の供試機関の改造によって,種々のガス燃料の使用に対して,軽油噴射量・噴射時期を任意に制御できる機関を構成した.
(2)メタンガスを燃料として利用し,機関性能モデルを作成した.性能モデルはメタン供給量,機関負荷,軽油噴射時期の3変量に対する正味熱効率,煙濃度,軽油代替率などの状態空間によって記述されている.
2.嫌気性発酵によるバイオガス生成シミュレータの開発
本研究はバイオマスの時期的・空間的な変動に伴うガス組成の変化に対する機関の適応制御法を考案することが目的であるので,嫌気性発酵より得られた生成ガスをシミュレートできる装置を試作した.バイオガスの主組成がメタンと二酸化炭素であることに着目して,2種類のガス濃度と流量を計測・制御できるように工夫した.この装置は実際の発酵槽内のガス生成時系列データを正確に再現できるものである.
3.ガス機関のCMACによる適応制御法の考案
1で得られてガス機関の性能モデルに基づいて,CMACによる適応制御法を考案した.ガス発生量と組成の変化に対して,性能モデルを修正し,噴射時期を適切に自己調整してゆく機能を有している.今後,バイオガス発生シミュレータを動作させて,適応制御アルゴリズムの有効性を実験により検証する予定である.
日本学術振興会, 奨励研究(A), 北海道大学, 05760191

Applications of Pattern Formation in Diffusive Instability Field on Modeling of Clod and Root System Formations
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
1990 - 1991
SHIBUSAWA Sakae
Finding general aspects and descriptions of both root system and tilled clod formations is a main issue in this work. This study is a challenge to bio-physically clarifying the behavior of soil-Plant systems such as the plant growth under interactions with environment, and it has been an issue of wide interest in phytotechnology. The objectives of this work were as follows :
1)to confirm that the configurations of both corn root systems and tilled clods are a kind of fractal patterns.
2)to explain the development of soil cracks like elastic materials by the use of pattern formation under diffusive instability in viscoelastic strain field.
3)to produce a branching growth model for a root system based upon L systems.
4)to find control parameters of pattern formation on root systems and tilled clods. The results were as follows.
1)Clods of heavy clay formed by rotary tillage showed power-scaling on their contours, cracks, and crack area distribution, and they were confirmed to be fractal patterns. Moreover high-frequency blade vibration was related to crack intervals on the clods.
2)The root system of corn followed anisotropic power distribution like a self-affine fractal.
3)Non-linear coupled diffusion equations including elastic strain and plastic flow terms were proposed for giving expression to viscoelastic behavior of soil, and local accumulation of elastic strain was simulated under diffusive instability.
4)Hierarchical modeling of a corn root system provided a new type of root growth model and broke through a limit of traditional L-system methodology.
5)General aspects of both clod and root system formations such as fractal were derived, and this would provide one avenue for investigators on soil-plant system-dynamics.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C), 02806046

生物生産のロボット化　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1989
Competitive research funding

Robotics Production Agriculture　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1989
Competitive research funding

バイオマスエネルギ利用技術　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1979
Competitive research funding

Utilizartion of biomass energy　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
1979
Competitive research funding

作業車両の無人走行による無人作業方法
Patent right, 行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 油田 克也, 野口 伸, 独立行政法人農業・生物系特定産業技術研究機構
特願平8-227046, 28 Aug. 1996
特開平10-066405, 10 Mar. 1998
特許第3656332号
18 Mar. 2005
3656332, 201103043735285895

Sensor Fusion Navigator for Automated Guidance of Off-road Vehicles　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Patent right, 野口 伸
特許US6445983B1
03 Sep. 2002
A1-006445983

作業車両及び作業車両の異常検出・対応方法
Patent right, 行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 小林 達也, 野口 伸, 生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構
特願平10-231269, 18 Aug. 1998
特開2000-066725, 03 Mar. 2000
200903074592686073

方位センサによる農用車両の直進制御法
Patent right, 行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 野口 伸, 生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構
特願平10-188787, 03 Jul. 1998
特開2000-014209, 18 Jan. 2000
200903084921316016

圃場作業車両の無人作業方法
Patent right, 行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 油田 克也, 野口 伸, 生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構
特願平8-227047, 28 Aug. 1996
特開平10-066406, 10 Mar. 1998
200903060287182455

作業車両の無人走行による無人作業方法
Patent right, 行本 修, 松尾 陽介, 油田 克也, 野口 伸, 生物系特定産業技術研究推進機構
特願平8-227046, 28 Aug. 1996
特開平10-066405, 10 Mar. 1998
200903082943937089