AUTOMATIC PLOUGHING

G.O. HARRIS B. AMBLER

Overview
0 Objective

0 Introduction
0 Materials and methods 0 Experimental results and discussion 0 Conclusion 0 References

OBJECTIVE
0 To built an apparatus which controls the steering of a

tractor while ploughing and turning at a headland.

INTRODUCTION
Opto-electronic remote sensing techniques were used for position finding and a microprocessor based unit controls the movements of the tractor just before and during the headland turn.

Control requirements
0 Two

controls are required during automatic ploughing:

Travelling in a straight line, parallel to the first manually-controlled pass. For this purpose an Optoelectronic displacement transducer is used. 2. The other control requirement is at the headland. A microprocessor based sensor is used to lift the plough and take U-turn by the tractor.
1.

The furrow follower

EXPERIMENTAL TRACTOR

Schematic diagram of steering servo

Control of the tractor near to and during the turn at the headland
Controlled by microprocessor based controller which receives input data from an opto- electronic range and bearing meter and from a heading indicator.

The turning technique

0 The technique which has been developed for turning

at the headland is intended for ploughing with a reversible plough. 0 The tractor is required to reverse its direction and also to move sideways by a cultivation width, using the least depth of headland compatible with the man oeuvre. 0 A modified U-turn has been adopted for the purpose in preference to a 3-point turn since it involves fewer gear changes and steering operations.

The headland turn

Cos =W

Where, W=lateral movement

(AP cos -Fpcos( - ))=e Where, e = estimated miss distance

Schematic diagram of the controller near to and during the turn

The components of the headland turn control system

0 The range meter:

The principle of operation of the range meter is the measurement of the time delay in terms of phase difference between a projected continuously-modulated light signal and the reflection received from a reflecting post.

Range meter

The reflecting posts

Resolution of the range measurements

The reflected range represented by a phase delay of one cycle at the lamp modulation frequency of 5 MHz is 30 m and since the phase relationship of the 5 MHz signals is maintained after frequency conversion, one whole cycle at 50 kHz also corresponds to 30 m. The range increment AR corresponding to one 15 MHz clock pulse thus becomes R=30 mx t/T=0.1m, Where, t and T are respectively, the periods of the 15 MHz and the 50 kHz waveforms. At the maximum range of 30 m the total count in Cl will be 3000 and to accommodate this number a 12-bit binary counter is used. The data in Cl are conveyed to the controller in 12-bit parallel form.

calibration of range meter

The calibration shows a good linearity between the measured distances and the range meter estimates. Over the working range (4-22 m) the error is less than 0.1 m. With a post of 80 mm diameter and a scanning rate of 1 rev/s the limit of range estimating ability is about 28 m. At this distance only one sample (i.e. average of 10 phase measurements) is obtained and, also the returned signal has fallen to a level where the limitations to accurate phase measurements are starting to be significant. The linearity of the calibration is not maintained and at 28 m the estimated range is approximately 0.5 m low. The addition of a selfcalibrating facility has ensured that temperature-dependent displacement errors are compensated for automatically. The calibration constant is not affected by environmental changes.

Bearing and heading measurements

0 The bearing transducer

The bearing of the boundary post relative to the tractor is measured simultaneously with the range measurement by a precision potentiometer linked to the rotating mirror of the range meter. A single-turn potentiometer with an electrical angle of 357 is used and the zero point is set to be parallel to a line through the rear axle of the tractor. This line then becomes the reference for all the subsequent trigonometric calculations. This datum was chosen since at no time do we use measurements made when the tractor is at or near a right angle to the furrow; a gap of approximately 3 in the angular measurement therefore does not matter. The analogue data from the bearing transducer is converted into a 12-bit binary number before going to the microprocessor where it is processed similarly to the range data before it is used in the calculations.

Calibration of bearing transducer

Calibration of the bearing transducer was effected by setting a reflecting post at a number of positions determined geometrically to give a range of bearings from 45 to 135 and from 225 to 325. Normally all the bearings required for computation will be within these 2 spans. The equipment was operated in its normal scanning mode and the bearing estimates were shown to be within 0.5 of the calculated bearings over the working ranges.

The heading transducer

Implementation of the control functions

Microprocessor based controller

0 Hardware description

Software description
0 Main program

Final adjustment to the position of the tractor

Experimental results and discussion

conclusion

Refrences