Thermo-responsive shape memory properties based on polylactic acid and styrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymer

This study aims to compare thermal, mechanical, and shape memory behavior of polylactic acid (PLA) blended with different structures of styrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymer (SBS), namely linear SBS (L-SBS), and radial SBS (R-SBS). The amount of L-SBS and R-SBS added was varied between 10 and 70 wt%, and the blending process was carried out using an internal mixer at 180°C before the shaping process by the compression molding. An improvement in the degree of crystallinity was observed across the entire composition range with less pronounced transition temperature change. Tensile strength and modulus of PLA/L-SBS blends were higher than PLA/R-SBS blends across all composition ranges. The results also revealed that the shape fixing ratio (R_f) and recovery ratio (R_r) of PLA/L-SBS were higher than PLA/R-SBS, with PLA70/SBS30 showed the best shape memory behavior. The morphology characteristics of the blend were also examined with the scanning electron microscope.     

Complete coverage path planning for wheeled agricultural robots

In the agricultural industry, an evolutionary effort has been made over the last two decades to achieve precise autonomous systems to perform typical in-field tasks, including harvesting, mowing, and spraying. One of the main objectives of an autonomous system in agriculture is to improve the efficiency while reducing the environmental impact and cost. Due to the nature of these operations, complete coverage path planning (CCPP) approaches play an essential role to find an optimal path which covers the entire field while taking into account land topography, operation requirements, and robot characteristics. The aim of this paper is to propose a CCPP approach defining the optimal movements of mobile robots over an agricultural field. First, a method based on tree exploration is proposed to find all potential solutions satisfying some predefined constraints. Second, a similarity check and selection of optimal solutions method is proposed to eliminate similar solutions and find the best solutions. The optimization goals are to maximize the coverage area and to minimize overlaps, nonworking path length, and overall travel time. To explore a wide range of possible solutions, our approach is able to consider multiple entrances for the robot. For fields with a complex shape, different dividing lines to split them into simple polygons are also considered. Our approach also computes the headland zones and covers them automatically which leads to a high coverage rate of the field.