2009 ASABE Robotics Competition

2009 Results:

  • 1st place: Kansas State University video
  • 2nd place: University of Nebraska at Lincoln video
  • 3rd place: Texas A&M University video

Here is a video where TSM student Chad Schnettgoecke discusses the robotic guidance approach at a preparation meeting at Illinois.

The third ASABE Robotics competition was held at the American Society of Agricultural & Biological Engineers' 2009 Annual International Meeting June 21-June 24, 2009, Reno, Nevada.

To date (April 15th, 2009) the following teams have committed to participate. We may have to add 'International' to our competition!

  • Kansas State University
  • National Taiwan University (2 teams!)
  • Oklahoma State University
  • Texas A&M University
  • University of Florida
  • University of Illinois
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln

In addition, Illinois will bring an indoor 'GPS' demonstration to be shared with all teams. If you have a team and wish to partipate in this competition, please send an email containing

  • Team Name
  • Advisor Name
  • School
  • Department
  • Address
  • Country
  • Tel
  • Fax
  • Email

to Dr. Tony Grift before the deadline which is May 15th, 2009. If you would like to invite other teams to participate, feel free to forward this flyer.

For a complete challenge and rules document, see the 2009 Challenge and Rules document. For Questions and Answers regarding the Challenge, see the Q&A page.

The challenge for 2009 builds on the 2008 challenge where vehicles navigated an artificial forest and selectively harvested trees. This year the challenge is somewhat simpler: Firstly, guidance lines are provided (in 2008 there were none for the harvesters) secondly, the trees themselves do not have to be transported, and thirdly, there is twice as much driving and turning space available for your robots. A change from 2008 is that the robot size is limited to 40*40*40 cm). This year one or more vehicles will go into the forest and detect if there are trees located at predefined locations on a board. If there is a tree present your team needs to communicate the location of that tree to a recording/display device.

To illustrate the working of forest machines, here a feller buncher is shown that has a feller head which cuts off trees and lays them down to be picked up later by skidders. The skidders then drag the trees to a location where they are delimbed and cut to a desired length.