• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.283-292
• /
• 1996

Automatic guidance of farm tractors would improve productivity by reducing operator fatigue and increasing machine performance. To control tractors within $\pm$5cm of the desired path, fuzzy and adaptive steering controllers were developed to evaluate their characteristics and performance. Two input variables were position and yaw errors, and a steering command was fed to tractor model as controller output. Trapezoidal membership functions were used in the fuzzy controller, and a minimum-variance adaptive controller was implemented into the 2-DOF discrete-time input-output model. For unit-step and composite paths, a dynamic tractor simulator was used to test the controllers developed. The results showed that both controllers could control the tractor within $\pm$5cm error from the defined path and the position error of tractor by fuzzy controller was the bigger of the two. Through simulations, the output of self-tuning adaptive controller was relatively smooth, but the fuzzy controller was very sensitive by the change of gain and the shape of membership functions. Contrarily, modeling procedure of the fuzzy controller was simple, but the adaptive controller had very complex procedure of design and showed that control performance was affected greatly by the order of its model.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
• /
• 2000.11b
• /
• pp.498-505
• /
• 2000

Performance of a hydraulic system is influenced by its working temperature. Therefore, it is very important to make the system perform uniformly in an entire range of the working temperature. In this study a simulation of a hydraulic control system for the powershift transmission of tractors was conducted and the effect of the temperature was investigated in terms of design conditions of the system. Results of the simulation are as follows. The hydraulic control system with a spring accumulator was found to be more convenient to control the shifting time than that with a gas accumulator. By returning the oil from the clutches to the system through a path between the filter and pump, the time delay due to the pressure difference between the low and high temperatures could be reduced. Therefore, it was recommended that the hydraulic control system for the powershift transmission of tractors must be equipped with a spring accumulator and a circuit to return oil from the clutches to the system through a path between the filter and pump.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.69-76
• /
• 2010

This study was conducted to develop an index of fuel consumption to rate agricultural tractors by their fuel efficiencies. The fuel consumption index consisted of two components: basic and operational indexes. The basic index is to consider an average amount of fuel consumed by engine when it transmits 20 and 100% of the rated power. The operational index is to consider the fuel consumed by tractor for typical field operations: plowing, rotavating, and the remains. The equations and procedures to obtain these indexes were proposed. The method and fuel consumption rate to classify tractors into 5 grades were also proposed. The best 15% of the tractor models were rated as the first grade, 20% as the second grade, 30% as the third grade, 20% as the fourth grade, and 15% as the fifth grade in order of fuel efficiency. Using the fuel consumption index, the classification was conducted on 143 tractor models tested at the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering from 2000 to 2007. The proposed 5-grade system of classification using the fuel consumption index could be used to rate the fuel efficiency of 20-100 kW tractor models produced over past 10 years in Korea.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.170-176
• /
• 2016

Purpose: This study aimed to improve the method for determining the position of the center of gravity for agricultural tractors. Methods: The proposed method uses trigonometric functions and coordinate transformation. Data were measured according to the ISO 789-6 test procedures for the center of gravity of agricultural tractors. The height calculated using the proposed method was compared with that determined from an AutoCAD drawing. To find the center of gravity of the tractor, the algorithm for finding the intersection of the two lines was used. Results: The vertical height from the ground to the center of gravity is 682.06 mm. The vertical coordinates obtained from the calculation and the drawing were the same. Conclusions: The developed method uses trigonometric and polar coordinate transformation. The method was compared and verified with the AutoCAD drawing results. The results indicate that users can apply this developed method instead of the plotting method which is an inconvenient and time-consuming. Further, users can program Microsoft Excel to easily determine the vertical coordinate. In addition, researchers will propose this method to the ISO as a standard method for determining the center of gravity in accordance with ISO 789-6.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.521-528
• /
• 2002

Rotary and plow implements are mainly utilized for the tillage operation in Korea, and a implement control system for agricultural tractors was designed and fabricated to improve the working accuracy and efficiency. The control system was composed of three units: 1) sensors fur detection of angle of liftarm, draft force, engine rpm, tillage depth and so on, 2) a controller, and 3) hydraulic circuits, which included solenoid valves and so on, for operation of three point linkage and implements. The control system can control the speed(high and low speed) of implements by adjusting input flow rates of the hydraulic cylinder which was controled by two speed valve, which was composed of a solenoid valve and a orifice. Indoor experiments were conducted to evaluate response characteristics of the designed implement control system under experimental conditions of various engine nm, two kinds of input flow rates of the cylinder and some input frequency. The results of experiments showed the response characteristics sufficient to use as the implement control system fur agricultural tractors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
• /
• 2001.07a
• /
• pp.103-108
• /
• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
• /
• 1999.12a
• /
• pp.92-98
• /
• 1999

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.71-80
• /
• 1988

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
• /
• 1997.06c
• /
• pp.25-31
• /
• 1997

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
• /
• 1998.06b
• /
• pp.14-19
• /
• 1998