Enhanced and Autonomous Machinery and Vehicles

Description

These lecture series are dedicated in communicating the fundamentals of Enhanced and Autonomous Machinery and Vehicles, with emphasis on their agricultural exploitation.
The areas being covered include but are not limited to:
Justifying the need for smarter machines and vehicles in agriculture. Electromechanical requirements and automatic control methods. Guidelines for the selection of sensor, actuator, microcontroller and networking equipment. Techniques for handling heterogeneous signals in real-time environments. Cyber-physical system basics. Methods for selecting the participating components. Automatic control fundamentals. Energy efficiency and sustainability guidelines. Ergonomics and security. Evaluation techniques. Exemplification with actual robots for agricultural purposes.

WEEK	Course Contents
1^ST	Defining the role of smarter machines in agriculture
2^ND	Electromechanical requirements and implementation directions
3^RD	Automatic control fundamentals (I)
4^TH	Automatic control fundamentals (II)
5^TH	Selecting sensor, actuator, microcontroller and network elements
6^TH	Adding intelligence to the robots
7^TH	Handling heterogeneous signals in real-time conditions
8^TH	Emphasizing on camera and GPS sensor assisted vehicles for fluent navigation
9^TH	Incorporating directions for energy efficiency and sustainable operation
10^TH	Recording and evaluating the behavior of the robotic machines
11^TH	Addressing security and ergonomics issues
12^TH	Testing diverse implementations using custom agricultural robotic vehicles
13^TH	Experimentation with emphasis on agricultural applications

Exams, marking and student assessment

A combination of written exams and project assignments during the semester