Korean Journal of Agricultural Science ISSN:2466-2402(Print) 2466-2410(Online) 농업과학연구

In the field of on-road motor vehicles, the level for autonomous driving technology is defined according to J3016, proposed by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International. However, in the field of agricultural machinery, different standards are applied by country and manufacturer, without a standardized classification for autonomous driving technology which makes it difficult to clearly define and accurately evaluate the autonomous driving technology, for agricultural machinery. In this study, a method to classify the autonomy levels for autonomous agricultural machinery (ALAAM) is proposed by modifying the SAE International J3016 to better characterize various agricultural operations such as tillage, spraying and harvesting. The ALAAM was classified into 6 levels from 0 (manual) to 5 (full automation) depending on the status of operator and autonomous system interventions for each item related to the automation of agricultural tasks such as straight-curve path driving, path-implement operation, operation-environmental awareness, error response, and task area planning. The core of the ALAAM classification is based on the relative roles between the operator and autonomous system for the automation of agricultural machines. The proposed ALAAM is expected to promote the establishment of a standard to classify the autonomous driving levels of self-propelled agricultural machinery.