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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.00320 |
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| _version_ | 1866914358974480384 |
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| author | Sharma, Sumesh Moll, Marcel Oksanen, Timo |
| author_facet | Sharma, Sumesh Moll, Marcel Oksanen, Timo |
| contents | Accurate reference trajectories are required to validate autonomous agricultural robots and highly automated off-road vehicles under real-world field conditions. In practice, robotic total stations provide millimeter-level prism center coordinates, but the point of interest on the vehicle is typically displaced by a lever arm, ranging from decimeters to multiple meters. Roll and pitch motions, as typically observed in off-road machinery, therefore introduce horizontal point of interest errors far exceeding the measurement accuracy of robotic total stations observations. This paper presents the design, implementation, and validation of a Smart Prism prototype that augments a robotic total station prism with an inertial measurement unit to enable real-time tilt compensation. The prototype integrates an STM32H7 microcontroller and a Murata SCH16T-series IMU and estimates roll and pitch angles using an adaptive complementary filter. The tilt-compensated point of interest coordinates are obtained by transforming a calibrated lever arm from the body frame into the navigation frame and combining it with robotic total station prism positions. To support vehicle-side integration, the system can transmit prism and tilt-compensated point of interest coordinates on the Controller Area Network bus, allowing the point of interest to be treated as a virtual position sensor (e.g., co-located with a rear-axle reference point). Experiments with a fixed ground reference point, using a prism to point of interest lever arm of approximately 1.07m and manual roll/pitch excursions of up to 60 deg, yield three-dimensional root-mean-square errors between 2.9mm and 23.6mm across five test series. The results demonstrate that IMU-based tilt compensation enables reference measurements suitable for validating centimeter-level navigation systems under dynamic field conditions. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_00320 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Smart Prism with Tilt Compensation for CAN bus on Mobile Machinery Using Robotic Total Stations Sharma, Sumesh Moll, Marcel Oksanen, Timo Systems and Control Robotics Accurate reference trajectories are required to validate autonomous agricultural robots and highly automated off-road vehicles under real-world field conditions. In practice, robotic total stations provide millimeter-level prism center coordinates, but the point of interest on the vehicle is typically displaced by a lever arm, ranging from decimeters to multiple meters. Roll and pitch motions, as typically observed in off-road machinery, therefore introduce horizontal point of interest errors far exceeding the measurement accuracy of robotic total stations observations. This paper presents the design, implementation, and validation of a Smart Prism prototype that augments a robotic total station prism with an inertial measurement unit to enable real-time tilt compensation. The prototype integrates an STM32H7 microcontroller and a Murata SCH16T-series IMU and estimates roll and pitch angles using an adaptive complementary filter. The tilt-compensated point of interest coordinates are obtained by transforming a calibrated lever arm from the body frame into the navigation frame and combining it with robotic total station prism positions. To support vehicle-side integration, the system can transmit prism and tilt-compensated point of interest coordinates on the Controller Area Network bus, allowing the point of interest to be treated as a virtual position sensor (e.g., co-located with a rear-axle reference point). Experiments with a fixed ground reference point, using a prism to point of interest lever arm of approximately 1.07m and manual roll/pitch excursions of up to 60 deg, yield three-dimensional root-mean-square errors between 2.9mm and 23.6mm across five test series. The results demonstrate that IMU-based tilt compensation enables reference measurements suitable for validating centimeter-level navigation systems under dynamic field conditions. |
| title | Smart Prism with Tilt Compensation for CAN bus on Mobile Machinery Using Robotic Total Stations |
| topic | Systems and Control Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.00320 |