Huge numbers of agricultural tractor trailer combinations are used for transportation. Many of the combinations rely on over-run braking on trailers. On-road transportation by the combination is being increased by increasing speed and mass capacities due to market pressure. A significant braking safety issue during on-road transportation is dealt with in this work. Proportional integral derivative (PID) control is proposed as a transitional solution towards domination of new tech equipment. Conventional and proposed PID brake controls were compared experimentally by a loaded real world scale agricultural tractor trailer combination. A double axle (front and rear) trailer with 8 tons load was used for dry asphalt road conditions and 0.35 seconds lag time detected between manual and PID controlled braking. Loss of driving stability was reduced by 50% and deceleration increased 21% with PID. Jack-knifing phenomenon is also evaluated. Proposed solution covers an important safety issue and improves braking performance.

In this study, a fuzzy-based automatic slip control system was developed for agricultural tractors. The developed system continuously measures the amount of slip that occurs during the tillage activities and automatically changes the operation depth of tillage equipment according to the amount of increase in the slip value. The amount of slip occurring on the driving wheels was applied as a separate input to the designed fuzzy control system (FCS) and at the fuzzy rule base, it was decided how much the depth of tillage would be reduced. The system was mounted on an agricultural tractor and trials were carried out in actual field conditions. The results of the tillage trials performed with the developed FCS were compared separately with the results of the tillage trials performed with an operator control (OC) without using any automatic control system. As a result of the trials, compared to the operator control, it was determined that in the tillage activities carried out with FCS, there were 42% decreases in slip values, 30% decreases in draft force values, 44% decreases in fuel consumption values and 5% increases in field work performance values. It was also observed that there were 10% changes in tillage depth. (c) 2021 ISTVS. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this study, a control system that automatically adjusts the working depth of the tractor tillage equipment has been developed in order to keep the wheel slip occurring in agricultural tractors during the tillage activities at the determined limit value. The developed automatic control system continuously measured the wheel slip on the tractor drive wheels and reduced the tillage depth adjusted for the wheel slip increase. While the amount of wheel sip was at the allowed level, the tillage equipment worked at the set depth value. In the study, a driver warning system is also designed to alert the driver to reduce the tillage depth when the amount of wheel slip exceeds the specified limit value. The driver warning system warns the driver visually with the help of colored LEDs and audibly with a buzzer according to the measured wheel slip value. The developed automatic control system was compared separately with the designed driver warning system and the operator's own control. The wheel slip value was calculated by comparing the forward speed of the tractor with the speed of the drive wheels. The automatic control system and driver warning system were installed on a New Holland TD110 agricultural tractor and trials were carried out in real field conditions. As a result of the trials, according to the driver warning system and operator control, it was determined that there was a 3-29% reduction in wheel slip and a 22-30% reduction in fuel consumption in soil tillage activities carried out with automatic control system. On the other hand, the draft force decreased by more than 5% compared to the operator control in the automatic control system. However, it was observed that there was almost no change in the average tillage depth between the control methods.

Aerodynamic properties of solid materials have long been used to convey and separate seeds during harvest and postharvest operations. In this study, the terminal velocities of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seeds as a function of seed mass and projected area were determined and also it was predicted by the fuzzy knowledge-based model. The results showed that the terminal velocity increased non linearly from 6.46 to 7.567m s -1 for chickpea and from 5.224 to 6.463 m s -1 for dry bean with an increase in seed mass and projected area. In this paper, a sophisticated intelligent model, based on Mamdani approach fuzzy modeling principles, was developed to predict the terminal velocities of chickpea and dry bean seeds. The verification of the proposed model is achieved via various numerical error criteria. The relative error of predicted values was found to be less than the acceptable limits (10%).