The cultivating and harvesting of fields can be a major logistical puzzle in farming today where the farmer must be able to plan and coordinate a wide range of operations and related machinery.

Farmers are bombarded with data and information on machinery and crops, but the value is minimal if there are no systems that utilise the data stream to actively optimise the production. In order to create value from the technological opportunities it is crucial that intelligent and user-friendly systems for decision support and coordination of the machines are developed.

This is where a research project at the Department of Engineering is attempting to help the farmer. Scientists are developing commercial ICT systems for automatic route planning and management of harvesting operations, and for the coordination of the machinery involved in the operation. The project will run over three years, is supported by Innovation Fund Denmark and is a collaboration with the international manufacturer of agricultural machinery and tools, AGCO A/S.

The project focuses on the harvesting operation. This includes harvesting machinery, the vehicles that collect the harvested crop from the harvester, the vehicles that transport the crop on the road, the equipment that processes (e.g. dries) the crop and the storage facility. Some parts of the harvesting process must be controlled and organised off-line, for example the decision on which machines to use when, before the harvest begins, while other parts of the process are controlled and optimised on-line, for example the logistical optimisation during the harvest based on actual conditions.

- Farming has undergone rapid development to meet the growing public demand for food products combined with a higher quality and lower prices. In the field, these demands have primarily been met with the development of increasingly large and productive machines. In the complex farming operations of today there is a large and untapped potential in optimising the interaction between the individual machines instead of just continuing to make larger machines, says Senior Researcher Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen from the Department of Engineering.

The project aims to develop an innovative commercial product that can continuously optimise the entire logistical chain in all the harvesting operations for all the vehicles, machines and systems used. The focus is therefore on the productivity of the complete farming system on the farm and not just the productivity of the individual machine.

The "Off-line and on-line logistics planning of harvesting processes" runs for 3.5 years. Project partners are Aarhus University and AGCO A/S. The project has a budget of 10 million DKK to which Innovation Fund Denmark is contributing 5 million DKK.

For further information please contact:

Senior Researcher Claus Grøn Sørensen, Department of Engineering, e-mail: claus.soerensen@eng.au.dk, telephone: +45 8715 7638, mobile: +45 2282 7547

Professor Peter Gorm Larsen, Department of Engineering, e-mail: pgl@eng.au.dk, telephone: +45 4189 3260