Linear guides and spindles in a robot that removes weed

We at Tuli d.o.o. donated round linear guides, linear bearings and shaft supports to a student project of creating the autonomous field robot FarmBeast.

For many years, a group of students from different fields of study, that is led by Doc. Prof. Dr. Jurij Rakun and Assoc. prof. dr. Miran Lakota, has been engaged in the production of an autonomous field robot as a part of extracurricular activities. By building an autonomous robot, students combine the knowledge of agronomy, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, and physics. Their goal is to develop a robot that is capable of autonomously navigating and processing crops in an environmentally safe, fast and accurate manner.

Already in the past years, they have created autonomous robots with their own resources, with which they have participated in international competitions every year. In the academic year of 2018/19, they were able to win the Free Style discipline competition, where they impressed the jury with an innovative idea and a prototype mechanism for the removal of weed. In the academic year of 2017/18 , they participated in the "Field Robot Event" held in Bernburg-Strenzfeld, Germany. They competed with fourteen teams from nine different countries and three continents. With the Farmbeast robot, they reached 4th place in the Basic Navigation discipline, 4th place in the Autonomous Weed Removal discipline, and 4th place overall. In previous years, they also achieved: 1st place in the Freestyle discipline (Venlo, Netherlands, 2013), 3rd place in basic navigation (Brenburg-Strenzfeld, Germany, 2014) and 3rd place in total (Heming, Denmark, 2011). The achievements to date and the desire to grow safe food are their greatest motivation for the future development of the robot.

The mechanism shown in the figures below consists of a linear bushing with housing KBA 10 UU, a linear bushing with a flange LMEK 16 UU, support for the linear guide SHF 10 and SHF 16, and the round linear guides W10/h6 and W16/h6.

You can also watch a video from the 2018/2019 competition at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsV6YsewQdc