Tractor-Implement Coordination Rules for Vehicle Combination Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing agricultural assistance systems struggle to fully exploit the optimization potential of tractor-implement combinations due to competing optimization goals and separate optimization processes, leading to suboptimal system behaviors.
Innovation Solution
A process supervisor coordinates tractor and implement setting systems using a derived coordination rule based on their characteristic features, facilitating the exchange of control data to align and balance individual optimization goals, thereby enhancing the overall optimization strategy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If individual automatic setting units are used for tractor and implement separately, then individual optimization goals can be implemented decentrally, but the optimization potential of the entire vehicle combination cannot be fully exploited due to competing optimization goals
Solution Approach 1:
A process supervisor is introduced as an intermediary component that coordinates between the tractor automatic setting unit and implement automatic setting unit. The process supervisor receives control data from both units, applies coordination rules to resolve conflicts between competing optimization goals, and generates coordinated control data that balances individual optimization objectives with overall vehicle combination optimization potential.
2Productivity
If a process supervisor with coordination rules is implemented to coordinate tractor and implement setting systems, then overall optimization quality is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The coordination system is segmented into distinct functional components: the process supervisor that manages coordination logic, coordination rules that define coordination strategies, and automatic setting units that remain relatively independent. This segmentation allows the complexity to be isolated to the process supervisor while maintaining simplicity in the individual tractor and implement control systems.
3Productivity
If control data is exchanged between tractor and implement automatic setting units, then coordinated optimization is achieved, but data processing complexity and communication requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The process supervisor acts as an intermediary that centralizes data processing and coordination logic. Instead of requiring direct complex communication between multiple tractor and implement control units, all control data exchange is routed through the process supervisor, which simplifies the communication architecture and reduces the complexity of data processing by providing a single coordination point.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to an assistance system for an agricultural vehicle combination (2) which includes a process supervisor (10) that coordinates tractor setting machines (7) and implement setting machines (9) within the framework of an optimization process for implementing a vehicle combination optimization strategy with at least one vehicle combination optimization goal.It is proposed that the process supervisor (10) contains or generates a coordination rule (11) derived from the at least one tractor setting machine (7) and the at least one implement setting machine (9), and that the process supervisor (10), based on the coordination rule (11), coordinates the at least one tractor setting machine (7) and the at least one implement setting machine (9) by transferring control data between the process supervisor (10) and at least one tractor setting machine (7) and/or at least one implement setting machine (9), and by transferring control data between at least one tractor setting machine (7) and at least one implement setting machine (9).