The invention relates to method of operating a fleet of autonomous vehicles at a work site having a loading area at which a loading device is provided for loading material onto said autonomous vehicles. The method includes controlling a first vehicle to drive in a first driving mode until it reaches a start position of the loading area, deactivating the first driving mode by controlling the first vehicle to be positioned in the loading area in a second driving mode, controlling a second vehicle to come into contact with and to push the first vehicle along the loading area and past the loading device for loading material onto the first vehicle as the first vehicle passes by the loading device, and reactivating the first driving mode of the first vehicle when the second vehicle has pushed the first vehicle to an end position of the loading area.

A travel processing unit causes a work vehicle to travel manually on the basis of an operator's manual travel operation. A route-generation processing unit generates a target route, which is a route for the work vehicle to travel automatically, when the operator's route-generation instruction operation to the operation unit is accepted while the work vehicle is traveling manually. A travel processing unit causes the work vehicle to travel automatically along the target route when the operator's automatic-travel start operation to the operation unit is accepted after the route-generation instruction operation.

A system for regulating the speed of a vehicle includes defining a first border for a first geographic region. The border has a first speed within the border and a second speed outside of the border. The system includes determining a first velocity of the vehicle including a vehicle speed and direction of the vehicle approaching the border. The difference between the vehicle speed and the second speed is the calculated, as is a distance between the vehicle and the border. If the difference between the vehicle speed and the second speed divided by the distance is greater than a predetermined value, the vehicle is decelerated at a rate so that the vehicle will have a second speed when the vehicle reaches the border.

A robotic work tool system (200) for defining a working area perimeter (105) surrounding a working area (150) in which a robotic work tool (100) is intended to operate. The robotic work tool system (200) comprises a boundary definition unit (300) comprising at least one position unit (175) for receiving position data; and at least one controller (210) for controlling operation of the boundary definition unit (300). The controller (210) being configured to receive, from the position unit (175), position data while the boundary definition unit (300) is moved around the working area (150) to define a preliminary working area perimeter (110). The controller (210) is further configured to identify, based on the received position data, a geometry of the preliminary working area perimeter (110) approximately corresponding to a predefined geometry; and to adjust the identified geometry to define an adjusted working area perimeter (105), wherein the identified geometry is adjusted to correspond to the predefined geometry.

Training an autonomous machine in a work region for navigation in various lighting conditions includes determining a feature detection range based on an environmental lighting parameter, determining a feature detection score for each of one or more positions in the containment zone based on the feature detection range, determining one or more localizable positions in the containment zone based on the corresponding feature detection scores, and updating the navigation map to include a localization region within the containment zone based on the one or more localizable positions. Navigation may use one or more of an uncertainty area, the localization region, and one or more buffer zones to navigate based on lighting conditions.

Embodiments of this specification provide a working map construction method and apparatus, a robot, and a storage medium. The method includes: determining a moving path of a robot when the robot moves forward as a first forward moving path; determining, after the robot moves backward, a position of the robot when the robot changes from moving backward to moving forward again as a correction position; determining an auxiliary position on the first forward moving path according to the correction position in a case that the correction position is not on the first forward moving path; and determining a correction path according to the correction position and the auxiliary position, so as to construct a working map of the robot according to the correction path and the first forward moving path.

A crane includes a crane body, a flying body, a route information acquisition unit that acquires route information in transporting a suspended load of the crane body via the flying body, and a support unit that performs steering support for performing a transport operation of the crane body along a movement route indicated by the route information.

A method for ascertaining an initial pose of a vehicle using a control device. Measured data ascertained by a GNSS sensor system and/or an odometry sensor system are received and evaluated to ascertain an approximate pose of the vehicle with a margin of uncertainty. At least one trajectory of road users is extracted from a trajectory map for the ascertained margin of uncertainty. Test points are positioned along the extracted trajectory. An optimization algorithm is performed for each test point along the trajectory. The optimization algorithm ascertains poses having corresponding cost functions. A pose having the greatest cost function is determined as the initial pose of the vehicle from the poses ascertained by the optimization algorithm. A control device, a computer program, and a machine-readable storage medium are also provided.

The invention relates to a method for cultivating row crops (200), comprising the following steps: sensor and satellite based recording of locations and/or courses of rows of plants (202a-202l ) while a first cultivation measure is carried out on a row crop (200) by means of an agricultural plant cultivation device (10) and controlling the movement and/or operation of an agricultural plant cultivation device (10) while a second cultivation measure is carried out on the row crop (200) based on the recorded locations and/or courses of the rows of plants (202a-2021).

One or more information maps are obtained by an agricultural work machine. The one or more information maps map one or more agricultural characteristic values at different geographic locations of a field. An in-situ sensor on the agricultural work machine senses an agricultural characteristic as the agricultural work machine moves through the field. A predictive map generator generates a predictive map that predicts a predictive agricultural characteristic at different locations in the field based on a relationship between the values in the one or more information maps and the agricultural characteristic sensed by the in-situ sensor. The predictive map can be output and used in automated machine control.