Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 5.10
PVDF grain loss impact sensor. (Xu, J., Li, Y., A PVDF sensor for monitor-
ing grain loss in combine harvester,
Proceedings of
International Federation for Information
Processing
, pp. 499-505, 2010. With permission.)
FIGURE 5.11
GQM sensor mounted to the outlet of a grain tank loading auger. (Long,
D.S. et al.,
Grain Protein Sensing to Identify Nitrogen Management Zones in Spring Wheat
,
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 1997. With permission.)
5.8 CURRENT TRENDS—UNMANNED FIELD MACHINERY
Perhaps one of the major impediments to development of fully autonomous field
machinery is liability, and more important is who will assume or share the liability?
For the foreseeable future, tractors will have drivers who in actuality are being rel-
egated to baby sitters to a large extent because of equipment size and corresponding
power levels. In short, technology continues to remove much of the control respon-
sibility from the operator. Perhaps the best examples include automated guidance
and turns. Now on the horizon is automation of the combine threshing mechanism
and cleaning shoe (New Holland, 2010a, 2010b). Until manufacturers and produc-
ers reach a consensus as to how liability issues will be resolved, we can expect the
operator to transition from commanding single machines to responsibility for mul-
tiple machines working in a coordinated behavior.
Use of multiple machines for increasing rate of work and productivity is common
on most of the large-scale farms worldwide. In a setup where multiple machines are
