When Obstacles Bend: Modeling Vegetation Deformation in the context of Field Robotics

2026-08-26

AI Summary

研究通过结合变形测量和接触力数据，独立于特定机器人来表征植被的内在机械属性，以解决自然环境中自主机器人与植被交互的问题。

Abstract

Autonomous robots operating in natural environments must often interact with vegetation rather than simply avoid it. In this context, traversability is typically defined from the robot's perspective, by measuring how a specific platform responds when moving through the environment. While practical, this viewpoint entangles the assessment of the environment with the robot's own dynamics, making the resulting characterization difficult to transfer across different platforms. More importantly, it does not directly reflect the properties of the vegetation itself, which are the true source of interaction and potential damage in applications such as agriculture and environmental monitoring. To address this limitation, we propose to characterize vegetation through its intrinsic mechanical properties, independently of any specific robot. By combining deformation measurements with contact force data, we estimate the underlying mechanical parameters and reconstruct the vegetation's response to interaction. This enables vegetation-aware navigation based on intrinsic environmental properties rather than platform-dependent metrics.

Problem

• vegetation
• traversability
• mechanical properties
• autonomous robots
• environmental interaction

Innovation

• vegetation deformation
• mechanical properties
• intrinsic environmental properties
• autonomous robots