Imaging Radar System from Bosch Engineering
The next step towards automated agricultural machinery
The agricultural industry faces various challenges, meanwhile the pressure to perform as efficient as possible drives the need for innovative technologies. These play a major part in making agriculture more efficient and sustainable. This is particularly true for assistance functions for agricultural machinery and equipment – right up to autonomous field robots. To facilitate automation in agricultural applications Bosch Engineering developed the next generation radar with the "imaging radar system".
Lane guidance in vineyards
The majority of automated lane guidance solutions are GPS based, which can be problematic due the geographic conditions in rural areas. Applications in vineyards or orchards are confronted with poor GPS signals due to various aspects such as the impact of vegetation, causing faulty lane guidance. The current state of the art solutions are LiDAR-based and provide unstable performance due to the impact of environmental conditions.
High imaging radar-based solutions for lane guidance in vineyards
Sensor technology can be applied to correct GPS-based systems or even offer an alternative solution without GPS-based navigation. Our radar technology is especially suited for reliable automated functions in agricultural areas due to their robustness to withstand environmental influences. The high resolution and information density of imaging radars offer new opportunities in mobile machines.
High imaging radar-based driving lane detection in orchards by Bosch Engineering
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Picture of situation in real-life -
Raw point cloud gained from imaging radar -
Filtered point cloud with detected driving lane (grey arrows) and moving object (green square)
Radar Off-Highway Premium
With our Radar Off-Highway Premium we offer a robust and premium-quality component from automotive business for high performance. Adapted specially for the off-highway market, this component offers you many benefits such as:
Extrem robustness
The benefit of radar technology compared to other sensor concepts such as LiDAR is its exceptional robustness against adverse weather and environmental influences such as rain, fog, or dust. Thereby, high functional reliability with comparatively low overall costs is possible.
High resolution
The high imaging radar offers a point cloud with a ten times higher resolution compared to previous system generations, meaning that objects in the detection area (x, y, and z coordinates) which are very close to one another can be distinguished even more reliably.
Precise detection
In specific, objects that are just one degree from one another (in perspective of the radar sensor) are still detected as separate obstacles.
Diverse application
Suited to support diverse automation functions in agricultural robotics.
Radar Sensor Toolbox
In order to simplify development of automation functions based on the imaging radar, Bosch Engineering is further developing the software package for radar applications, the so-called radar sensor toolbox, with each application.
Software for fast implementation
- The radar sensor toolbox is based on ROS2 and specifically filters out only the information from the huge quantity of sensor data available which is relevant for the respective automation function.
- This is applicable for functions such as the height measurement of an implement or determining the machines track center for applications in orchards.
Easy configuration
When configuring a new application, the developers simply have to enter the parameters they are looking for to define the requirements for the sensor system. The software then automatically integrates the required sensor data. This reduces the requirements regarding the use of radar technology on the machine manufacturers side.
Contact us
Michael Rattka
Senior Sales Manager Off-Highway