Process and behaviour based scripting language for weeding agents

A flexible high-level control language is an important element in the continued task of introducing mobile agents to new application domains. One such new application domain is the use of a small mobile agent in an agricultural field performing mechanical intra-row weeding. This paper defines requirements and scope of a process and behaviour based scripting language needed to control the weeding agent in an agricultural field. The basis is the transparent and tactical SMR-CL (Real-time Control Language for Mobile Robots) language modified to include necessary motion commands and a supplemental supervisory function to record the progressing coverage of the field. The focus is on a reactive and an adaptive real-time distributed behaviour guided by sensor information during execution in a semi-structured agricultural field environment. The control language is applied to a limited number of cases presenting typical field conditions for row crops.