Systems Engineering Approach to Agricultural Automation: New Developments

This paper presents the Systems Engineering approach to future Precision Autonomous Farming (PAF). It focuses on the preferred specification of the farming systems including the farming system layout, sensing systems and actuation units such as tractors-implement combinations. The authors propose the development of the Precision Farming Data Set (PFDS) which is formed off-line before the commencement of the crop cultivation and discusses its use in accomplishing reliable, cost effective and efficient farming systems. The work currently in progress towards the development of autonomous farming vehicles and the results obtained through detailed mathematical analysis of example actuation units will also be presented.