Towards the Development and Verification of a 3D-Based Advanced Optimized Farm Machinery Trajectory Algorithm.

Tomáš Řezník,Thomas K Alexandridis,Filip Leitner,Jakub Hrádek,Šimon Leitgeb,Martina Klocová,Vojtěch Lukas,Tomáš Pavelka,Petr Širůček,Kateřina Trojanová,Dimitrios Moshou,Abdul M Mouazen,Radim Štampach,Lukáš Herman

doi:10.3390/s21092980

Abstract

Efforts related to minimizing the environmental burden caused by agricultural activities and increasing economic efficiency are key contemporary drivers in the precision agriculture domain. Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) techniques are being applied against soil compaction creation, using the on-line optimization of trajectory planning for soil-sensitive field operations. The research presented in this paper aims at a proof-of-concept solution with respect to optimizing farm machinery trajectories in order to minimize the environmental burden and increase economic efficiency. As such, it further advances existing CTF solutions by including (1) efficient plot divisions in 3D, (2) the optimization of entry and exit points of both plot and plot segments, (3) the employment of more machines in parallel and (4) obstacles in a farm machinery trajectory. The developed algorithm is expressed in terms of unified modeling language (UML) activity diagrams as well as pseudo-code. Results were visualized in 2D and 3D to demonstrate terrain impact. Verifications were conducted at a fully operational commercial farm (Rostěnice, the Czech Republic) against second-by-second sensor measurements of real farm machinery trajectories.

Highlights

Decreasing soil health causes, among other issues, a barrier to producing more highquality food and has become a widespread challenge across the world
Five main results were achieved during the development of the optimal farm machinery route algorithm:
Trajectories created according to the developed algorithm;

Summary

Introduction

Decreasing soil health causes, among other issues, a barrier to producing more highquality food and has become a widespread challenge across the world. Issues related to soil health and soil productivity are defined in countless legally binding documents, scientific papers, strategies, best practices, models, and applications, etc. The majority of (developed) countries address soil productivity and health—in particular, issues relating to soil erosion and soil compaction—on a legislative basis. The challenge of optimizing movement on agricultural soil was first addressed before the advent of mechanization [2]. The time-consuming nature of cultivating fields and minimizing the load on agricultural animals was an issue; nowadays, interest has shifted to optimizing the movement of agricultural machinery to reduce both the environmental burden and operating costs while increasing efficiency [3,4]. Costs are defined in terms of materials, finances, and time [5]. Plot identification was defined by Reznik et al [11], while the visualization of farm trajectories was presented by Reznik et al [12] and Charvat et al [13]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion