Predictive Spray Switching for an Efficient Path Planning Pattern for Area Coverage

This paper presents, within an arable farming context, a predictive logic for the on- and off-switching of a set of nozzles. The predictive logic is tailored to a specific path planning pattern. The nozzles are assumed to be attached to a boom aligned along a working width and carried by a piece of machinery with the purpose of applying spray along the working width. The machinery is assumed to be travelling along the specific path planning pattern. The concatenation of multiple path patterns and the corresponding concatenation of the proposed switching logics enable nominal lossless spray application for area coverage tasks. The proposed predictive switching logic is compared to the common and state-of-the-art reactive switching logic for Boustrophedon-based path planning for area coverage. The trade-off between a reduction in pathlength and increase in the number of required on- and off-switchings for the proposed method is discussed.