OPTIMIZING MACHINERY PATHS IN AGRICULTURAL FIELDS

• Grant number: 12/07958-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: February 01, 2013
• End date: March 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agricultural Engineering - Agricultural Machinery and Implements
• Principal Investigator: José Paulo Molin
• Grantee: Mark Spekken
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Despite the issues of acquiring and operating agricultural machines, these don't spend their whole their time in field doing the aimed work, and a fraction of the time is spent with non-productive operations. Besides this, the poorly planned and undesired traffic of machines creates overlapping of agricultural goods, soil compaction and leads to soil erosion problems. Minimizing these impacts by following a more suitable path pre-planned in a computer algoritm have been already studied and achieved by authors, pushed by the recent development of positioning systems, guidance systems and robotics in agriculture. The objective of this work is to create algoritms that take into account the economical and environmental impacts, generating straight and curved paths according to the landscape, targeting the sugar-cane production system. The expected results will be parameters of cost reduction of a new path and optimized georeferenced routes to implement in automatic pilots in the field.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

SPEKKEN, MARK; DE BRUIN, SYTZE; MOLIN, JOSE PAULO; SPAROVEK, GERD. Planning machine paths and row crop patterns on steep surfaces to minimize soil erosion. COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, v. 124, p. 194-210, JUN 2016. (12/07958-2, 15/01071-4)

SPEKKEN, MARK; MOLIN, JOSE P.; ROMANELLI, THIAGO L.. Cost of boundary manoeuvres in sugarcane production. BIOSYSTEMS ENGINEERING, v. 129, p. 112-126, JAN 2015. (12/07958-2)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

SPEKKEN, Mark. Creating optimized machine working patterns on agricultural fields. 2015. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC) Piracicaba.