Embedded digital drive wheel torque indicator for agricultural 2WD tractors

Abstract

A microcontroller based embedded system was developed to measure and display the dynamic wheel axle torque and drawbar power of agricultural tractor for tillage research. The device includes a special transducer to measure dynamic drive wheel torque of tractor, an embedded wireless digital system to receive process and display data digitally as well as record in SD card module near the dash board of the tractor. The embedded system mainly consists of an amplifier to amplify the transducer signal, a transmitter unit to process the amplifier data, and a receiver unit to receive and display the transmitter unit data. The developed system was rigorously tested under laboratory and actual field conditions. It was found that, a maximum variation of ±320 Nm torque between the theoretically calculated and experimentally observed values under field conditions. With the developed devices the real time power requirement of various agricultural operations could be known to help the tillage researchers. The developed device and systems are simple and accurate and can be used for any range of agricultural tractors.