A DGPS-Based Safety System for Agricultural Machinery

Abstract

When DGPS technology for the localization and navigation of vehicles became available, investigations were initiated at the Institute of Agri- cultural Engineering and Land Improvement of the Martin-Luther Uni- versity Halle-Wittenberg in order to extend automatic tractor steering which had been developed as of the beginning of the nineties to comprise safety-relevant tasks. The goal of the first development step is the timely recognition of given field boundaries, natural obstacles, and freely chosen blocked areas, which are noticed in time during the field ride due to the combination of automatic steering with a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) and can warn the driver by triggering optical and/or acoustic signals before a critical position is reached. The intended hard- and software-based connection of these two different technical systems in a „safety system for agricultural machinery“, which has a modular design and works independently of the driver, is to make a contribution towards improved ergonomic process design and to create the necessary prerequisites for greater process security.