Improving Efficiency of Farming Tractor Implement by Electrification

The aim of this paper is to present how the Fuel Efficiency of a tractor-implement system can be increased by replacing the hydraulics of a Planter with electric machines. The analysis of the power flows of the implement based on field data is the first step to build a simulation model of the Planter, that is then connected - both mechanics and hydraulics - to the multibody model of a farming tractor. The electrification of the Planter consists of replacing the hydraulics with electric machines supplied by a generator connected to the engine shaft. The simulation results of the tractor-implement models show a significant improvement in terms of fuel consumption reduction for the electrified system compared to the baseline one.