Development of affordable hardware-software complex for parallel driving of a machine-tractor unit

Abstract

The results of development and testing of an economical domestic hardware-software complex designed to automate the process of parallel movement of machine-tractor units under precision agriculture conditions are discussed. The relevance is due to the strategic task of import substitution and the need to provide domestic agricultural enterprises with affordable automation tools. The complex is based on a tablet computer with built-in inertial sensors and a magnetometer, integrated with a multi-frequency GPS/GLONASS satellite receiver and a control unit. An algorithm for compensating positioning errors arising during transverse and longitudinal rolls of the unit on soil surface irregularities was developed which made it possible to achieve sub-decimeter accuracy of location determination (error did not exceed 0.1 m). The conducted field experiments included tests on MTZ-82 and John Deere tractor equipment as well as on the self-propelled fertilizer spreader Tuman-2 with parallel track recording by the standard TeeJet Matrix Pro 570GS system. Functional compliance of the domestic development with the imported analogue was achieved in terms of performance indices (tilled area 16.06 ha in 20 min 51 s and 31.87 ha in 20 min 11 s) with significantly greater resistance to external interference. It was found that with manual control using a direction indicator, deviations of up to 30–40 cm were possible; to eliminate them it was advisable to use an automatic steering device. The cost of the developed complex is several times lower than foreign alternatives with comparable technical characteristics.