STORY I Off-Highway

Imaging Radar System from Bosch Engineering, shown in wineyards. 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

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 Off-Highway Premium

Further information on our solution.

product data sheet

Use Cases

Lane guidance in orchards without GPS data

The imaging radar enables automated functions such as lane guidance without the need for GPS data, thereby supporting smooth performance without signal problems in rural areas due to the impact of vegetation.

Height measurements for machines such as harvesters and their implements or crops

Among other things, this enables very precise height measurement for precise readjustment of the device's working height from the ground while driving through uneven terrain.

Radar-based functions

To simplify the development of automated functions based on the imaging radar, Bosch Engineering is developing application-specific software packages for radar applications.

Software for faster implementation

In the prototype phase, we are using ROS2 for the radar-based functions. The functions process the radar point cloud and calculate control parameters that are required for the (partial) implementation of a use case.
Basic function modules such as filters form part of the prototype software. Customer-specific functions can be configured or derived on this basis.
This applies to functions such as the height measurement of an implement or the determination of the track center of a machine for orchard applications.

Easy route to final application

Whether for volume production or prototypes, the sensor-based functions ensure rapid success and reduce the need for complex, sensor-specific radar expertise on the part of machine manufacturers.