ALFRED: Requirement-driven development of an open-source mobile manipulator for long-term plant monitoring
Tracking seasonal change in crops and forests requires observing the same plants repeatedly. Ground robots can do this at close range, and a manipulator gives their sensors more viewpoints. Yet the robots behind long-term field datasets are rarely released with their design files, and how a robot's own structure limits arm reach and occludes its sensors is seldom compared between builds. We present ALFRED, an open-source mobile manipulator built from commercially available components. It carries a six-degree-of-freedom arm, LiDAR, RGB-D cameras, RTK GNSS and an IMU on an Ackermann-steered base, all mounted on a reconfigurable aluminium strut frame, and runs containerised ROS software. It ...
| Authors | Ciarán Miceal Johnson, Christopher Quail, Garry Ellard et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.RO |
| Published | 1 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 1 October 2026 |
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