Assessment of power consumption of electric machinery in agricultural tasks for enhancing the route planning problem

Abstract

In field operations, machinery is subject to resource restrictions that lead to a significant number of approaches to make it more efficient. Operational times, costs and manoeuvres, machinery effort, among others, are often considered for route planning strategies. In particular, the route planning problem (RPP) has been widely studied for both single and fleet of agricultural machinery performing a previously assigned task, considering the above constraints. However, such a study is limited to engine combustion of agricultural machinery. With electrically powered vehicles, it is yet to be determined how to estimate the power consumption and the power requirements for the route planning problem, to ensure that the vehicle will be able to complete the task. In electric machinery, the power is associated with the rolling resistance, the aerodynamic resistance of the vehicle, its mass, the terramechanic relationship between the wheel and the terrain, among other factors. In this work, it is analytically presented the estimation of the instantaneous power consumption (IPC) of an electric machinery in agricultural tasks, given a previously defined route, according to the nature of the terrain that it is traversing; and it is latter empirically validated in the field. The experiments performed in an avocado grove show a root mean square error of 60 kW in the estimation of the IPC, against 900 kW when using manufacturer information. The results shown herein can be used for further enhancing the route planning problem and the decision making process of the farmer, by adding power restriction (and thus, energy usage) of electric vehicles to the RPP.