How to Drive Autonomously Using the Werkr Tractor

Welcome to Werkrs' user-interface. This is where the tractor operator can find important information on battery state of charge, RTK connection, etc., as well as control the seeder, AI cameras, or set up autonomous driving.

One of first things you'll notice when opening the interface is a yellow tractor animation in the middle of the screen. Once you start moving, you will see a trail forming behind the tractor, tracing the path you have just driven.

The accuracy of this path will depend in part on the tractors' connection with the base station. You will know that the base station is connected if both the left and right receivers read RTK Fixed (shown below in green). This is necessary for accurate autonomous driving. The position accuracy can be read beside the RTK status (shown below in yellow).

Home

Beside the RTK information, the tractors' battery charge level (shown above in pink) is displayed. The instantaneous power consumption can be read in the Debug tab. The image below shows power usage at top speed, where approximately 4.2 kW are consumed (in yellow).

Debug Tab

The two autonomous driving modes that I use most frequently are creating a straight line, and following a path. Creating a single line allows you to drive a perfectly straight line between two defined points. It's as simple as setting End 1 and End 2, saving, and then running it under the Controls tab.

Drive in a single straight line.

Following a path is done similarly. The operator drives a path, while recording, and then the tractor accurately repeats it.

Step 1 & 2: Record path

Step 3: Autonomously tracing the driving path

Once these settings have been set up on the interface, the tractor operator physically turns our manual/autonomous switch and the tractor begins moving through its path. At the end, it will stop itself and can be put back into manual mode.

These setups can be saved so that you can return days or weeks later, and drive the exact same path. We're testing it out right now at the farm, in our radish bed. We seeded using the single line method, and saved that line so that once the plants come up, we can basket weed autonomously. We are curious if our robot can weed more accurately than I can!

In the coming months, we’ll be expanding our autonomous driving capabilities with new features like adjusting lift height along a path, driving repeated offset lines, and covering predefined areas. Stay tuned for more updates!