Improve Energy Efficiency of Hybrid Electric Tractor Drivetrain using Centralized Control

Most of the off-highway manufacturers are transitioning to sustainable solutions to reduce both emissions and energy consumption. A series of solutions are being deployed and investigated to transition to sustainable agriculture. Electrification is a proven technology to achieve energy efficiency which is already matured and getting popular. In case of, off highway equipment, electrification helps in delivering customer value under three major categories namely precision, productivity, and sustainability. Precision agriculture helps accurate application of products (seeds, fertilizer etc.) in the field, productivity guarantees the required system response with high performance controls whereas sustainability helps reduce the environmental impacts of our job and applied products. This paper establishes optimal supervisory control strategy on power split hybrid electric propulsion system of agriculture tractor to effectively manage and prioritize the required actuator performance while controlling the energy flow through and from power sources to consumers while meeting the vehicle-level precision, productivity, and sustainability objectives.