Decomposition of Agricultural tasks into Robotic Behaviours

A new method is described that can be used to decompose human controlled agricultural operations into robotic behaviours embedded in an autonomous tractor. Four main levels have been identified: Operation, Task, Optimisation/Behaviour and Primitive actions where each level is subsumed by the level above. Tasks were further classified into two distinctive types, deterministic tasks that can be planned and optimised before the operation begins and reactive tasks that have associated behaviours to deal with unknown conditions whilst in the field. Both deterministic and reactive tasks can be further decomposed into primitive actions, which in turn are converted into the tractor directrix. Examples of this method are given for exploring an unknown area and ploughing a field. Results of a simulation of the explore operation are presented.