Power Consumption Analysis of a Prototype Lightweight Autonomous Electric Cargo Robot in Agricultural Field Operation Scenarios

Dimitrios Loukatos, Vasileios Arapostathis, Christos-Spyridon Karavas (), Konstantinos G. Arvanitis and George Papadakis
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Dimitrios Loukatos: Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Vasileios Arapostathis: Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Christos-Spyridon Karavas: Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Konstantinos G. Arvanitis: Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
George Papadakis: Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: The continuous growth of the urban electric vehicles market and the rapid progress of the electronics industry create positive prospects towards fostering the development of autonomous robotic solutions for covering critical production sectors. Agriculture can be seen as such, as its digital transformation is a promising necessity for protecting the environment, and for tackling the degradation of natural resources and increasing nutritional needs of the population on Earth. Many studies focus on the potential of agricultural robotic vehicles to perform operations of increased intelligence. In parallel, the study of the activity footprint of these vehicles can be the basis for supervising, detecting the malfunctions, scaling up, modeling, or optimizing the related operations. In this regard, this work, employing a prototype lightweight autonomous electric cargo vehicle, outlines a simple and cost-effective mechanism for a detailed robot’s power consumption logging. This process is conducted at a fine time granularity, allowing for detailed tracking. The study also discusses the robot’s energy performance across various typical agricultural field operation scenarios. In addition, a comparative analysis has been conducted to evaluate the performance of two different types of batteries for powering the robot for all the operation scenarios. Even non-expert users can conduct the field operation experiments, while directions are provided for the potential use of the data being collected. Given the linear relationship between the size and the consumption of electric robotic vehicles, the energy performance of the prototype agricultural cargo robot can serve as a basis for various studies in the area.

Keywords: precision agriculture; autonomous systems; agricultural robots; energy modeling; activity tracking; performance evaluation; embedded systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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