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Smart Agriculture ›› 2019, Vol. 1 ›› Issue (2): 85-93.doi: 10.12133/j.smartag.2019.1.2.201903-SA002

• Intelligent Equipment and Systems • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Development of an automatic steering test bench for tractors

Du Juan1,2, Li Min1,2, Jin Chengqian1,2, Yin Xiang1,2,*()   

  1. 1. College of Agricultural Engineering and Food Science, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China
    2. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Dry Farming Machinery & Informationalization, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China
  • Received:2019-03-13 Revised:2019-04-18 Online:2019-04-30

Abstract:

In recent years, the technology of automatic tractor navigation based on satellite positioning has greatly improved the efficiency and accuracy of tractor field work. Automatic steering contributes is one of the key technologies to realize the automation and intelligentization of agricultural mechanization. It costs much time to install and test automatic steering systems for tractors in the field due to complicated conditions. An automatic steering test bench was developed to reduce time consumed in the field by conducting simulation tests on accuracy and reliability. The developed automatic steering system can be applied to the tractor after obtaining satisfactory results on the test bench, which will greatly shorten the development cycle and improve the precision of the system. In this study, a 120-horsepower tractor front axle was selected. Through the design and calculation of mechanical structure, hydraulic system and electrical control system, the tractor automatic steering test bench was built. The mechanical body consist of a tractor front axle assembly, a loading device and a mechanical frame. The hydraulic interface was reserved for post-installation of automatic steering devices. Two inertial measurement units were used to test the steering system performance by recording the rotation angle of front wheels and the steering wheel. The steering wheel had a steering clearance of 16.48° and an average wheel delay time of 0.14s. In the general range and small angle range, there is a small deviation between the actual corner and the theoretical corner. Responsibility and stability met requirements for agricultural machinery steering. Experimental results show that the test bench has stable performance in terms of status detection, steering control and measurement analysis, which could meet requirements for verifying working parameters of automatic steering devices. The research provides an efficient and reliable test bench for commissioning and performance testing of agricultural machinery automatic steering.

Key words: tractor, automatic steering, test bench, automatic control

CLC Number: