State-of-the-Art and Prospect of Automatic Navigation and Measurement Techniques Application in Conservation Tillage

Abstract

Intelligent technology is one of the important approaches to improve working quality and efficiency of conservation tillage machine. Automatic navigation and measurement & control technology, which are the key components of intelligent technology, have been rapidly developed and applied in conservation tillage. In this paper, the application progress of automatic navigation and measurement & control technology in conservation tillage, including automatic guidance technology, operation monitoring technology for operating parameters and operation controlling technology of conservation tillage machine were reviewed. Firstly, wheat-maize planting mode was taken as an example to expound the automatic guidance technology for conservation tillage machine due to many types of crop planting modes under conservation tillage. According to the principle of navigation, it could be divided into automatic guidance technology of touch type, automatic guidance technology of machine vision type and automatic guidance technology of GNSS type. From these different automatic guidance technologies for no/minimum tillage seeding in maize stubble field, the application progress of automatic navigation technology in conservation tillage machine was introduced in detail. Secondly, the development of the operation monitoring technology for operating parameters of conservation tillage machine was systematically presented as follows: 1) The rapid detection technology for surface straw coverage, including surface straw coverage before and after operation, which was of great significance for the determination of conservation tillage technology and the evaluation of the performance of the conservation tillage machine; 2) The monitoring technology for seeding parameters of no/minimum tillage planter, mainly contained seeding quantity, missed seeding and multiples seeding, which were the key indicators for seeding quality; 3) The monitoring technology for operating area of conservation tillage machine, which was mainly calculated based on the forward speed of the testing machine. Thirdly, the development status of operation controlling technology for conservation tillage machine was reviewed, mainly focusing on the compensation and controlling technology for missed seeding and operation depth controlling technology. The operation controlling technology for conservation tillage machine, which was capable of realizing certain active control of the machine key components under the condition of accurate and real-time monitoring of the current operation status of conservation tillage machine, was important for working quality. To be specific, the operation depth controlling technology was composed of seeding depth, subsoiling depth and topsoil tillage depth. In the end, on the basis of summarizing the current application of automatic navigation and measurement technology in conservation tillage, the future research directions of automatic guidance technology, operation monitoring technology for operating parameters, and operation controlling technology in conservation tillage machine were prospected.

Keywords

• conservation tillage
• automatic navigation
• measurement
• intelligent
• agricultural machinery