Machines without Men (robotics)

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Driverless machinery, is inevitable, but developing farming systems that need sophisticated technological solutions can be minimised. In broadacre agricultural operations, almost always there exists cooperation between a mobile element and a manipulative element. The mobile element is most commonly a tractor and the manipulative element an implement. In general, the tractor provides the propulsion and the implement carries out the task. In carrying out the task, the implement interacts with the ground and is subject to a wide variety of forces that more often than not, causes undesirable implement motions. As precision farming is becoming increasingly important, it is necessary to improve the precision of implement motion. This is in stark contrast to the precision of the prime mover motion. Our proposed research aims to develop control methodologies to maximize the precision attainable in controlling agricultural equipment. There are two primary research goals. Firstly, we will endeavour to develop a complete and accurate mathematical model of the tractorimplement combination. To date, all published works are aimed at developing controllers based on simplistic kinematic models. They ignore the dynamic effects and hence, perform poorly in practice. Developing a complete mathematical model is a complex task. Having obtained the complete mathematical model, sophisticated control algorithms will be developed to suit the model. These algorithms will then be tried in simulation to choose an optimised algorithm. Secondly, we will develop control strategies to be implemented on a fully instrumented agricultural tractor. GRDC funds will be used to build a seeding implement that can be pulled by the John Deere tractor described. Download the full article to read more.

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