Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

7-2025

Abstract

Automatic vehicle guidance is prevalent for agricultural tractors. An unguided implement being pulled by a tractor can deviate from the desired path by varying soil conditions and gravity, e.g., on a sidehill (which causes tractor roll) or curve. The deviation from the guidance path will cause navigation error, and seed and fertilizer deviations can cause yield reductions. There are some commercial active implement guidance systems, but their steering performance was primarily reported on flat ground and not well-reported on side hills. CNH Industrial developed an active implement guidance system, which was used on four hitch steering (row-crop planters and strip till bars) and three wheeled steering (potato planter) systems. CAN logs were used to record GPS position, speed, implement and tractor steering engaged status and cross-track error (XTE), and implement roll. A total of 8047 qualifying engaged events were identified; these had a total duration of 335 hr. XTE standard deviation (XTE SD) for the engaged event was calculated as a steering performance metric. In the forward direction three hitched steering systems had median XTE SD values less than 2.0 cm at 8–10 km/hr, one hitched steering system had a median XTE SD of 3.0 cm at 15.4 km/hr, and the three potato planters had median implement XTE SD values of less than 1.3 cm at 4–6 km/hr. In the reverse direction the median XTE SD of the potato planters was less than 3 cm for each system at 1.4–3.8 km/hr. The results of the seven systems here compare favorably to previously-reported implement steering results and also to vehicle (not implement) GPS steering results.

Journal

ASABE Meeting Presentation

DOI

https://doi.org/10.13031/aim.202500309

Rights

Copyright © the authors 2025

Comments

Posted with permission

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