[4-1600-D] Other Categories (1)

[4-1600-D-08] Mallard Navigation Using Unmanned Ground Vehicles, Imprinting, and Feeding

*Hirokazu Madokoro¹, Satoshi Yamamoto¹, Hanwool Woo¹, Kazuhito Sato¹ (1. Akita Prefectural University(Japan))

Keywords:rice-duck farming, feeding, imprinting, mallards, navigation, unmanned ground vehicle

This study was conducted to develop an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that navigates mallards to achieve high-efficiency rice–duck farming. This paper presents two navigation approaches and fundamental experiments to test them using a UGV. As the first approach, we used imprinting applied to baby mallards. Baby mallards, after hatching, exhibit following behavior to a UGV after imprinting. One week after hatching, baby mallards show wariness against an imprinted target object. Experimentally obtained observation results revealed the importance of providing imprinting immediately after hatching. As the second approach, we used feed placed on the top UGV body. Experimentally obtained results showed that adult mallards exhibited wariness not only against the UGV, but also against the feed box. After relieving wariness with provision of more than one week time to become accustomed, adult mallards ate feed in the box on the UGV. However, they ran away immediately at a slight movement of the UGV. We confirmed the necessity of imprinting to baby mallards for actualizing navigation because adult mallards are alerted by the UGV.