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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
An Autonomous Electric Powered Tractor—Simulation of All Operations on a Swedish Dairy Farm
Author(s)
Jonas Engström1 and Oscar Lagnelöv1, 2
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DOI:10.17265/2161-6256/2018.03.006
Affiliation(s)
1. Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Agrifood and Bioscience, Uppsala 756 51, Sweden
2. Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Uppsala 756 51, Sweden
ABSTRACT
For a conventional agricultural tractor the main environmental effects
originates from the usage phase, more specifically from the diesel use and
exhausts. To decrease the environmental effect, it is vital to find a
substitute for fossil diesel as a fuel for agricultural machinery. This study
investigated the feasibility of an autonomous battery electric tractor through
simulation. The simulated farm is an organic dairy farm of 200 ha with five
crops in the crop rotation cycle and a traditional plough among the used
implements. Based on the result from the simulation cost calculations,
sensitivity analysis and a limited life cycle analysis (LCA) was made. The
results show that it is in theory possible to replace a conventional tractor
(160 kW) with two autonomous battery powered machines (36 kW engine, 113 kWh
battery) with 15% lower costs. Energy consumption would be reduced by 58% and
greenhouse gas emissions by 92% compared to diesel when energy consumption and
greenhouse gas emissions from battery manufacturing were included. Today the
technology for autonomous control is under fast development, but there are yet
no systems on the market that can handle all machinery tasks like assumed in
this study. Challenges yet to solve are, among others, legislative, relevant
sensors, logistics and fleet management. Further research is needed to verify
the results in practical farming.
KEYWORDS
Autonomous, agriculture, electric, battery, tractor, farming, fossil free, sustainable.
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