Optimization study on the design of utility tractor powered by electric battery

Abstract

Abstract Powertrain by electric battery has been a growing trend in various industries including automotive, manufacture, and agriculture. Electric battery has been applied on several agricultural robots for multiple purposes such as liquid distribution, autonomous harvest, and sensors. In agricultural utility tractor, powertrain by electric battery has potential to replace powertrain by Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) which commonly use fossil fuel as source of energy. However, application of electric battery power system has not been feasible due to overweight which lead soil compaction, lower speed, and high energy consumption. This study aims to optimize the design of utility tractors which will reduce the weight to standard operational weight dependent on tractor size. Alternative components are considered including Li4.4Si battery, Li-S battery and Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) for component selection, system design, and simulation on MATLAB/Simulink – Simscape. Alternative components have contributed to reduce weight of the tractor significantly, from 93% to 12%56% range of overweight. Improvement in weight contributed to less significant soil pressure, improve maximum speed and state of charge (SOC). Further, electric battery power system is expected to be applied on utility tractors, replacing the use of ICE and fossil fuel within conventional tractor.