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from the so-the-green-tractor-is-going-green? dept.
John Deere has released a video of an all-electric concept tractor in the lead-up to the SIMA Agribusiness show in France, pointing the way toward a zero-local-emissions tractor product in the future.
In some ways, tractors seem like an ideal candidate for electrification. Electric motors are great for generating the kinds of huge torque figures tractors require, and tractors are generally fairly short range vehicles that live in the same shed every night, making for convenient recharging. They're also very low-maintenance in comparison with diesel gear.
That's the thinking behind John Deere's SESAM (Sustainable Energy Supply for Agricultural Machinery) tractor, a gutted out JD 6R with a huge battery bank up front and dual electric motors developing up to 130 kilowatts (174 horsepower) of continuous power.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:35AM
As any mobile vehicle designer will tell you, the constraints are not always related to range but also endurance. Of course a tractor does not need to go far, it needs to work all day from Sun to Sun. Time vs Distance -> [J]/[Km] vs [J]/[s]
On a slightly unrelated note, in Aircraft, the speed and Lift/Drag configurations are different if you are aiming at maximum endurance or at maximum range. Also in one configuration you will sacrifice the other.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @10:04AM
With the advent of modern farming with automated control, I get the strong idea that tractor run hours are no longer tethered to sunlight hours.
If anything, I could imagine tractors being powered from overhead wire pantographs... and I am talking BIG tractors, probably looking more like buildings than the big three-wheeled thingies we see in our kid-books...as there may well be a thousand acres under cultivation and the growing cycles of crops demand timely attention.
I have left automated factories churning away making product... in the dark. The lights were there just for us humans when we come in to inspect or fix something. The machines did not need the light, and any light the machines did need was supplied by specialized illuminators so the light levels could be carefully controlled for insuring repeatability.
I kinda cringe to think of a modern *industrial* farm running like Grandpa did it. Now, a family farm, different modus operandi. Grandpa ran a family farm. One is like an industrial brewery that runs more like an oil refinery, whereas the latter is more like a family microbrewery or moonshine still. Big difference in the cost per unit produced. The mass produced stuff has a marginal cost of production approaching zero. Almost zero times a huge number can be a pretty big number too.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 10 2016, @10:14AM
When growing plants inside, you don't need tractors. Tractors are for outdoor farming. Indeed, as soon as you have a supporting structure above your field, a tractor is a bad idea because it takes away worthy area for plant growth where its wheels go. If you already have an overhead structure anyway, better place robots on that.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:06AM
Hydroponics... By the time one scales that up, with all conditions controlled, one is no longer confined to "seasons". It appears farming, like painting the Golden Gate bridge, would be a continuous process of harvest/planting ( Possibly along large circular rails? Whose radius is measured in kilometers? Stacked in huge cylindrical buildings? ).
A big circular buffer, so to speak, sized to whatever maturation cycle the plant had been genetically engineered for.
With robotic construction coming online, the effort of making such a thing looks primarily in the materials acquisition and design. The machines do most of the work.
Brave new world.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @05:08PM
They already have big hydroponics farms like you describe. They load the plant in on one side and the crop comes out the other. However, they still have seasons due to the different amount of solar energy coming in. For example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUvZEYlHkmQ [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @03:42PM
One answer to that may come from solving another limitation.
Tractors are typically equipped with removable weights, because the balance between increasing capability and limiting ground loading changes by time of year, soil type, and climate. The weights that let you do more work most of the year may dig ruts if you get into the field early in the spring. And if you match a diesel tractor's weight, with the same detachable weights, you don't have much battery, but most of the time have pointless metal weights attached.
So the right answer is clearly to make the battery system modular, so when you do want to increase the weight, you do it by adding modules and increasing your endurance. And once you do that, the solution to range limitations is obvious -- a trailer full of charged battery modules, complete with a crane to assist in swapping them.
Similar battery-swap concepts are difficult to implement for electric cars, but several major hurdles wouldn't apply to tractors: