Robust and efficient coverage paths for autonomous agricultural vehicles

Documentation • Installation • Quick Start • Tutorials • API • Paper

Fields2Cover is an open-source C++ library with Python bindings that solves the Coverage Path Planning problem for agriculture: given a field and a vehicle, it computes a complete coverage path — headlands, swaths, an optimized route, and a drivable path with feasible turns. It also provides a common, extensible framework to implement and compare coverage path planning algorithms, so researchers don't have to re-implement every algorithm they want to compare against. The API is still evolving, so expect occasional breaking changes between releases.

Core features

• Modular pipeline: headland generation, swath generation, route planning and path planning as interchangeable modules — or a single call to planCovPath.
• Non-convex fields and obstacles, handled by trapezoidal and boustrophedon decomposition.
• Route optimization with OR-tools, plus classic patterns like boustrophedon, snake and spiral.
• Kinematically feasible turns using Dubins and Reeds-Shepp curves, with or without continuous curvature.
• C++17 core, Python bindings, and a ROS 2 integration via opennav_coverage.

Quick Start

Fields2Cover builds on GDAL, GEOS and OR-tools, which need to be installed first (details in the installation guide):

# Ubuntu
sudo apt install build-essential libgdal-dev libgeos-dev libeigen3-dev libboost-dev \
     libtbb-dev libtinyxml2-dev nlohmann-json3-dev libpython3-dev gnuplot
# plus OR-tools for C++: https://developers.google.com/optimization/install/cpp

# macOS
brew install gdal geos or-tools tinyxml2 eigen tbb boost gnuplot

C++

#include "fields2cover.h"

int main() {
  F2CField field = f2c::Parser::importFieldGml("data/test1.xml");
  F2CRobot robot(2.0, 6.0, 0.5, 0.2);

  F2CPath path = f2c::planCovPath(robot, field, false);

  f2c::Visualizer::figure();
  f2c::Visualizer::plot(field.getCellsAbsPosition());
  f2c::Visualizer::plot(path);
  f2c::Visualizer::show();
  return 0;
}

find_package(Fields2Cover REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(<your_target> Fields2Cover)

Python

pip install fields2cover

import fields2cover as f2c

field = f2c.Parser().importFieldGml("data/test1.xml")
robot = f2c.Robot(2.0, 6.0, 0.5, 0.2)

path = f2c.planCovPath(robot, field, False)

f2c.Visualizer.figure()
f2c.Visualizer.plot(field.getCellsAbsPosition())
f2c.Visualizer.plot(path)
f2c.Visualizer.show()

Installation

• Python: pip install fields2cover — the package is built from source on your machine, so the system dependencies above must be installed.
• C++ / from source: clone this repository and build with CMake — full walkthrough in the installation guide.
• ROS 2: see opennav_coverage, a Nav2-compatible coverage task server built on Fields2Cover.

Documentation

The extended documentation lives at fields2cover.github.io:

• Tutorials — step through every module of the pipeline, in C++ and Python
• API reference
• Migration guide v1 → v2
• FAQ

Contributing

If you find an issue, a bug or have a proposal, open an issue. Pull requests are more than welcome; for major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change, and make sure to update tests as appropriate. A one-click development environment is available:

Citing

Please cite this paper when using Fields2Cover for your research:

@article{Mier_Fields2Cover_An_open-source_2023,
  author={Mier, Gonzalo and Valente, João and de Bruin, Sytze},
  journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
  title={Fields2Cover: An Open-Source Coverage Path Planning Library for Unmanned Agricultural Vehicles},
  year={2023},
  volume={8},
  number={4},
  pages={2166-2172},
  doi={10.1109/LRA.2023.3248439}
}

License & credits

Fields2Cover is released under the BSD-3 license. It stands on the shoulders of GDAL, OR-tools, steering_functions, nlohmann/json, tinyxml2, CubicSplineClass and matplotplusplus. The project is (partly) financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).