Profiling the Instantaneous Power Consumption of Electric Machinery in Agricultural Environments: An Algebraic Approach

Abstract

One of the upcoming challenges in precision agriculture is the development of electric machinery able to replace traditional combustion engines. This step toward green agriculture practices still has to face the lifetime of the batteries. Despite their technological advancement, batteries’ charges do not last as long as fueled engines. The route planning problem (RPP), for example, has to be re-thought according to the available energy resources since the machinery might exhaust its power without finishing the route. This work focuses in part on such a vast problem by proposing and testing an algebraic, yet simple technique to obtain instantaneous power consumption (IPC) profiles to be used by the RPP. The technique presented herein uses the knowledge of the terrain, the kinematic and dynamic constraints of the vehicle, and its electric model. The methodology followed is later validated in a real grove—i.e., trees cultivated in rows—showing that our power profiling technique reaches errors smaller than 10% when estimating the IPC and the associated energy required. This result can lead to better decisions by the farmer.