Virtual safety bubbles for safe navigation of farming machines

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for establishing a virtual safety bubble surrounding an autonomous farming machine comprising a detection system having a field of view of an environment surrounding the farming machine, the field of view comprising one or more blind spots of the environment, and the instructions that, when executed by a computer processor, cause the computer processor to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a notification from an operator of the autonomous farming machine that there are no obstacles in the blind spots of the detection system, wherein receiving the notification from the operator that there are no obstacles in the blind spots comprises:
• prompting the operator to walk around the autonomous farming machine in a resting position;
• and
• verifying the operator walks around the autonomous farming machine;
• verifying that there are no obstacles in unobstructed views of the detection system by using the verification that the operator walked around the farming machine and by applying an obstacle detection model to images captured by the detection system;
• determining a configuration of the autonomous farming machine to autonomously perform farming actions in the environment with implements of the farming machine;
• determining a virtual safety bubble for the autonomous farming machine to autonomously perform the farming actions based on the determined configuration;
• detecting an obstacle in the environment by applying the obstacle detection model to images captured by the detection system;
• determining that the obstacle is within the virtual safety bubble;
• and
• in response to determining that the obstacle is within the virtual safety bubble, terminating operation of the autonomous farming machine.

An autonomous farming machine navigable in an operating environment for performing one or more farming actions, the farming machine comprising:

• a detection system comprising one or more cameras configured to capture images of the operating environment surrounding the farming machine, the detection system having a field of view comprising one or more blind spots of the environment;
• a treatment mechanism configured to apply treatment to a treatment area as part of the one or more farming actions;
• a control system for establishing a virtual safety bubble surrounding the autonomous farming machine comprising:
• a computer processor, and
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer processor to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a notification from an operator of the autonomous farming machine that there are no obstacles in the blind spots of the detection system wherein receiving the notification from the operator that there are no obstacles in the blind spots comprises:
• prompting the operator to walk around the autonomous farming machine in a resting position;
• and
• capturing images of the operator walking around the autonomous farming machine, wherein detecting a completed walk-around indicates no obstacles in the blind spots of the detection system;
• and
• verifying that there are no obstacles in unobstructed views of the detection system by using the verification that the operator walked around the farming machine and by applying an obstacle detection model to images captured by the detection system;
• determining a configuration of the autonomous farming machine to autonomously perform farming actions in the environment with implements of the farming machine;
• determining a virtual safety bubble for the autonomous farming machine to autonomously perform the farming actions based on the determined configuration;
• detecting an obstacle in the environment by applying the obstacle detection model to images captured by the detection system;
• determining that the obstacle is within the virtual safety bubble;
• and
• in response to determining that the obstacle is within the virtual safety bubble, terminating operation of the autonomous farming machine.