Abstract:For the purpose of overcoming the obstacles in application of autonomous rice drill seeder in paddy fields, a path tracking algorithm with high accuracy used for steering control during straight traveling in uneven mud paddy fields was introduced. Combining lateral deviation and heading angle deviation as feedback, a nonlinear steering control model was developed in the algorithm. Integrators were added to the nonlinear control model to eliminate the steadystate errors. Moreover, the velocity of vehicle was also taken into account in the model to improve the path tracking accuracy of the algorithm. To avoid the position error caused by incline, the influence caused by the roll angle and the pitch angle of the vehicle on position coordinates given by GPS were taken into account when the vehicle was on a slant. The algorithm about turn control at the edge of the field was introduced. The overall control scheme was implemented and the experiments carried out in arable paddy fields showed that the mean absolute lateral deviation of the algorithm was 0.027m and the mean heading angle deviation was 0027°. The path tracking algorithm was able to meet the required precision for autonomous rice drill seeder in paddy fields of China.