Understanding the process of the sugarcane milling is important for improving sugar extraction. The Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian algorithm within LS-DYNA was successfully used for the first time to simulate the dynamic process of milling. The predictions of the numerical model were validated using experimental crushing data from a previous study and dynamic process of milling was examined in detail

The effect of the rice movement and the forces acting on rice grains during abrasion in a mill is unclear limiting the development of rice milling machines. The aim of this work is to provide a numerical methodology for predicting the abrasion rate of rice to provide the basis for the design and use of rice mills and improving milling quality and efficiency. Here, the milling process was investigated

Behaviour can be used to infer animal welfare states. Poultry birds tend to move less under conditions of thermal stress; hence the hypothesis of this research is that this unrest behaviour can be used as an indicator of thermal comfort. The objective was to develop an Unrest Index for poultry bird's sensitive to changes in this behaviour under different air temperature conditions. The proposed Unrest

Previous studies on the cut quality of sugarcane stalks have mainly focused on external factors. However, the effects of internal factors on the cut quality have rarely been studied. In this study, the influence of internal and external factors on the cut quality were considered. Numerical finite element simulations and an experimental design were utilised to investigate the influences of the internal

Recently, the number of accessories in vehicle powertrains has been significantly increased. These accessories are necessary for vehicle operation. Accessories are driven by the engine, so their power demands result in a reduction of the vehicle's useful power. For heavy-duty vehicles, the most demanding accessories are the alternator; fan drive; heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning compressor

Plant leaf detection and segmentation are challenging tasks for in-situ plant image analysis. Here, a novel leaf detection scheme is proposed to detect individual leaves and accurately determine leaf shapes in natural scenes. A leaf skeleton-extraction method was developed by analysing local image features of skeleton pixels. Approximate positions of individual leaves were determined according to the

Fertiliser dissolution is usually carried out in a differential pressure tank. Fertiliser concentration at tank outlet is essential information for the correct control of optimum fertilisation. To enable optimisation, a fertiliser concentration equation was derived from the continuity equation with a source term. The source term described fertiliser dissolution using the initial dissolution rate and

Commercial vegetable crop transplanters currently use several unsynchronised planting units mounted to a common transport frame. The objective of this work was to assess the performance of a new transplanting technology to improve the plant placement accuracy and spatiotemporal planting synchronization across adjacent rows, thus producing a grid-like planting pattern using adjacent vegetable crop transplanters

The mounting behaviour of pigs is a symptom of oestrus and is also related to their welfare. It can be recorded by surveillance video, which is a kind of streaming data. This paper proposes a pig mounting behaviour recognition algorithm by exploiting video spatial–temporal features. First, a pig detector is constructed based on Faster R–CNN to locate the pig's body, head, and tail from the image frames

The vision system of a fruit picking robot must perform two difficult tasks, the accurate pixel-wise instance segmentation of fruit and the correct detection of picking points. Due to the unsatisfactory performance of the vision system on these tasks, the picking performance of the robot is insufficient and its application is not prevalent. In this study, performing fruit instance segmentation and

Crops with branching characteristics, such as rapeseed, are difficult to harvest owing to their specific plant geometry. To solve this problem, an harvesting reel with improved tine trajectory, considering the reel working process and a function suitable for oilseed rape, is proposed in this study. The improved tine, of which angle can be continuously adjusted to adapt to the plant structure and meet

This study attempted to develop a virtual reality (VR) simulator to educate greenhouse farmers and consultants. In this first of two papers, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was used to analyse the aerodynamic environment inside the greenhouse for growing the tomato crop. Representative aerodynamic problems that can occur in winter and summer seasons inside greenhouses in Korea were derived

The aim was to develop a virtual reality (VR) simulator to help educate greenhouse farmers and consultants. In this second paper a VR simulator that visualises the aerodynamic environment inside greenhouses was developed using VR technology. The three-dimensional greenhouse simulated was designed following the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computed cases of Kim et al. (reference required). Specifically

In this study, the specific changes in the electrical impedance properties of sweet potato tissues under low-temperature storage are reported. The tissue status was monitored by using an electrical indicator, LTO (which refers to the distance from the origin of the coordinate at the top of the circular arc of the corresponding Cole–Cole plot), and its variation was investigated at storage temperatures

Feasibility of pyrolysing wastewater sludge for char and energy production is dependent on the usability of the produced sludge char. This study aimed to produce mechanistic information of char impacts on amended porous media by determining (1) pore structure of sludge chars with 3D image analyses and (2) their influence on water retention and shrinkage properties of three contrasting soils. The pore

Jacaranda mimosifolia D. Don, a tree widely used for afforestation, has been studied for different applications due to the composition of its extracts. The drying kinetics of J. mimosifolia seeds in a thin layer and its process were modelled using an analytical solution of diffusion model, first considering the parameter Effective Moisture Diffusivity (EMD) to be constant. For variable EMD, a sequential

Model generalisation for the detection of tea moisture content was investigated across different leaf surface orientations and tea varieties in this study. The micromorphology of leaves plucked from three tea bushes was analysed, and differences between different surface orientations and varieties were observed. The VNIR spectra (350–2500 nm) of the leaves were collected and analysed. Excellent prediction

The design of handling equipment for granular biomass primarily requires experiments. Discrete element models (DEM) can provide designers with detailed insight into the behaviour of granular materials. However, granular biomass comprising complex-shaped particles is difficult to model with DEM. A tomography-informed DEM approach and an exhaustive assessment of the ability of the approach to predict

Energy conservation is an increasingly important issue in greenhouse production. Since higher energy input usually produces higher crop yields, crop yield and energy consumption must be carefully traded off. Generally, at any instant, the heating energy demand and crop yield depend on an interior temperature setpoint. Good, dynamically determined greenhouse climate setpoints not only improve crop yield

A loose-housing barn in Northern Germany with thirty-six Holstein Friesian dairy cows was fully monitored by video cameras. The barn was partitioned into the areas for lying cubicles, moving area, licking stone, cow brush, feeding and water troughs. From automatically detected cow activity, the cows’ proportional usage of the resources associated with these areas was determined. The resulting time

The reliability data from the front driven axle of a four-wheel drive tractor exhibits a multi-peak distribution because of the complex field environment. The aim of this study was to establish an accurate statistical model for the dynamic stress spectrum with mixed distributions. Using rain-flow counting, the stress-time history of the tractor was transformed into the rain-flow matrix with two parameters

Claw injuries of pigs due to inadequate floor surface conditions are a major concern in pig operations. Rough and slippery concrete floor surfaces can result in claw disorders. In this paper, the surface roughness and dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) of concrete floors used in two sow gestation rooms were studied. The first room had a slatted concrete floor with 105-mm wide slats and 19-mm wide

On farm experimentation (OFE) has been a long-standing method for farmers to assess alternative management at scales relevant to their farming practices. Through the use of spatially distributed designs, whether simple strips or other ‘whole-of-block’ trials, OFE can provide information such as which treatment should be recommended at specific locations, and make important contributions to precision

Centre filling of a cylindrical silo results in a peaked grain pile with a high concentration of fines in the bulk core restricting airflow. Fines are also known to have higher mycotoxin levels than whole grain. Coring is recommended to minimise fines and to increase localised airflow through the top grain regions. However, the proportion of coring is not a generalised factor when silo dimensions and

Since the late 1970s, remote sensing techniques have been proven to be suitable for characterizing and monitoring plants and crops. In particular, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions contribute considerably to this prediction effort. However, the main issue when using SAR image series together with field observations is the scarcity of data due to the difficulty of acquiring field measurements

This study presents a meta-analysis of measured ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) emissions from dairy barns. A total of 27 peer-reviewed articles were selected to explore relationships between gas emission rates and housing system, measurement methods and environmental factors using linear mixed effect models. A large variation in measured gas emission rates from dairy buildings was observed, with 3

Piglet tracking is critical to automated piglet behaviour and welfare analysis. Following the tracking-by-detection paradigm, we have developed an online piglet tracking network (OPTN) composed of a base network, a detection head and an association head. The unweaned piglets in video images were detected at the region-based detection head, and the piglet central locations were mapped onto the feature

This work is focused on transient diffusion processes inside semi-solid and solid agri-food products presenting ellipsoidal shape, i.e. prolate and oblate spheroids and general ellipsoid. Many typical industrial operations like drying, soaking, rehydration, heating, cooking, and cooling, can be effectively modelled by using Fick's law for mass diffusion and Fourier's law for heat conduction, with constant

Accelerated structural tests can evaluate the fatigue life of tractors and reduce the development costs and test time. An indoor test bench has great potential for carrying out fatigue tests due to its simple control, anti-interference and high repeatability. For the unreasonable design and insufficient damage correlation of the tractor indoor durability test, a method for designing tractor accelerated

Interest in the electrification of agricultural vehicles is increasing along with growing interest in autonomous vehicles. Individual technologies have been well-explored, but not their combined use and the effects on agricultural fieldwork. In this study, cost analysis was conducted based on a simulated vehicle system with 50 kW self-driving battery-electric drive (BED) tractors. The analysis included

During rice threshing, stems are easily broken and usually mixed with the grains, making it difficult for further automatic processing. Thus, in order to improve the efficiency of grain cleaning during harvesting, it is beneficial to reduce the breakages of rice stems. The threshold values of rice stalks in both the transverse and longitudinal directions under tension, compression and bending forces

Fungi can infect paddy from the planting process through to storage. Contaminating fungi can produce aflatoxins that can persist in the paddy and in storage until it is used to make other products. In the interests of food safety, in this study, we aimed to control the growth of fungi in paddy during storage using mathematical modelling of a drying method that uses fluidisation at temperatures of 70–150 °C

The purpose of this study is to analyse the distribution pattern of centrifugal fertiliser distributor with two shutter holes and obtain the optimal position of the shutter holes for improved distribution uniformity. A simulation model of the centrifugal fertiliser distributor was generated by discrete element method (DEM). The behaviour of fertiliser particles on the spinner was analysed by the simulation

Ammonia (NH3) is the major source of N loss related to laying hen facilities. Previous studies are often based on continuous monitoring of NH3 concentration and ventilation rate in the facilities during long periods. The objectives of this study were (i) to relate climate and production management parameters to model NH3 emission, (ii) to check the accuracy of the proposed model and (iii) to evaluate

Manual weighing of heifers is time-consuming, labour-intensive, expensive, and can be dangerous and risky for both humans and animals because it requires the animal to be stationary. To overcome this problem, automated approaches have been developed using computer vision techniques. In this research, the aim was to design a novel mass prediction model using deep learning algorithms for youngstock on

An estimation of canopy photosynthetic activities is needed in order to better understand biomass production of field crops. Thermal imaging techniques and the heat balance model enable us to estimate canopy diffusive conductance (gc) and canopy transpiration rate (E) of crops under field conditions. However, because conventional methods are unstable when wind velocity is very low, it is difficult

Lameness is a common problem in breeding sows, which often goes undetected for long periods with severe consequences for animal welfare and farm productivity. Automatic lameness detection could help pig farmers to recognise and treat lameness sooner. The SowSIS (Sow Stance Information System) is a device consisting of four force plates and providing non-invasive force measurements per leg of the sow

For grain combine harversters the correlation between cutting frequency and forward speed is typically based on the theoretical matching value of the cutting pattern. However, in reality cutting frequency is affected by cutting resistance which strongly linked to the physical and mechanical characteristics of the crop stems. Consequently, the field cutting frequency is usually lower the standard setting

There appears to be a preference for pesticide sprayed onto plants to be deposited in larger quantities at leaf tips than in other parts of plants. However, there is no clear experimental evidence to explain this phenomenon. Based on previous studies, the possible mechanisms for this phenomenon include aerodynamics, microstructure of the leaf surface and the leaf elasticity. Three experiments were

Though numerous studies have investigated optimal locations for biorefineries given the availability of feedstock supplies, few have considered that these supplies could vary over time, thereby potentially failing to meet feedstock requirements. In this paper, we develop a process for identifying a shortlist of five potentially viable biorefinery sites in Alberta, and then consider the stochastic nature

A key challenge for autonomous precision weeding is to reliably and accurately detect weed plants and crop plants in real time to minimise damage to surrounding crop plants while performing weeding actions. Specifically for a wheat farm, classifying ryegrass weed plants is particularly difficult even with human eyes since ryegrass shows visually very similar shape and texture to the crop plants themselves

The accurate determination and estimation of grain moisture content is important for maize (Zea Mays L.) production, processing and drying studies. However, different drying procedures are often adopted by different operators to determine the grain moisture content, making it difficult to compare results with each other. In this study, different drying temperatures and times were used to create different

Ammonia emissions damage the environment and have negative consequences for human and animal health. In the German livestock sector, most ammonia emissions come from naturally ventilated dairy barns. To reduce emissions, Germany has signed the EU Directive 2016/2284 to achieve a stepwise decrease in the ammonia emissions ceiling. The aim of this study was to investigate the seasonal mitigation effect

In recent years, automatic weed control has emerged as a promising alternative for reducing the amount of herbicide applied to the field, instead of conventional spraying. The use of artificial intelligence through the implementation of deep learning for early weeds identification has been one of the engines to boost this progress. However, these techniques usually need very large datasets coping with

Crop yield is a primary trait to select superior genotypes and evaluate breeding efficiency in breeding programs. Crops with high yield potential are usually selected from numerous breeding lines in multiple years and locations. However, the efficiency of conventional breeding programs is limited by the capacity of field phenotyping, which can be improved by developing high-throughput field phenotyping

Ammonia emissions have a negative influence on both human and animal health as well as on the environment. Livestock farming, in particular the dairy sector, is a major source of ammonia emissions. Urease inhibitors may act as a suitable mitigation measure without requiring the high investments connected with, e.g., new floor surfaces in barn refurbishments. The main aim of this field study was to

During harvesting, the thresher of the combine harvester produces unbalanced vibrations due to problems such as stalk winding and these can greatly affect the stability and service life of the device. Finite element modal analysis and the vibration tests of the threshing cylinder and the frame were carried out. Based on the simulation of the thresher and the analysis of experimental data, four kinds

Ammonia emissions have wide-ranging negative consequences for human, animal and environmental health. Regulations including EU Directive 2016/2284 require European Union member states to reduce emissions. Dairy farming has one of the highest levels of ammonia emissions. Most dairy barns in Germany are naturally ventilated to meet higher animal welfare standards. However, these housing systems allow

Self-excited pitch and bounce oscillation occasionally occurs when a tractor pulls a high-draft load on dry soil. This dynamic instability is referred to as the power hop phenomenon. Power hop drastically degrades tractor performance and ride quality and can result in damage to the tractor, operator injury, and soil compaction. Power hop dynamics are characterised by three typical nonlinear elements;

In order to achieve accurate detection of litchi fruits in their natural environment, a ripe litchi recognition method with a Red-Green-Blue Depth (RGB-D) camera, which can be used to estimate fruit yields, is proposed in this paper. First, both colour and depth images of litchis are collected using an image capturing system with an RGB-D camera. Then, redundant image information outside the effective

Near-infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging is a useful method for powdery food quality and safety evaluation. Due to the particularity of the powder, light penetration depth and adulterant particle size have an effect on detection of adulterants in wheat flour. In this study, wheat flour of different thickness was placed on talcum powder or benzoyl peroxide (BPO) of different particle sizes to study

The storage of slurry substantially contributes to the ammonia (NH3) released from livestock production. This study quantified farm-scale NH3 emissions from a circular open tank storing dairy cow slurry by means of continuous measurements over two years. Emissions were determined by scaling the product of line-integrated concentration measurements across the tank and wind speed measurements at 10 m

Drip irrigation is an efficient and safe system for reusing wastewater in agriculture. Since emitter clogging is its main limitation, filtration is needed for preventing it. Media filters are commonly used when irrigation water has a high particle load. However, particle removal through a media bed in media filters used in drip irrigation systems has not been widely studied mainly due to experimental