Automation of a Grid Connected Agricultural Swarm

The growing interest for electrification in agriculture has led to projects such as GridCON [4] where a fully automated, all electric, cable powered tractor has been developed to address the limitations in operating hours found in battery electric tractors [1]. The GridCON2 [8] project follows up with the scaling of the cable technology to higher power levels to supply several tractors from a single energy source. Whereas the development of such machines is the focus of the field swarm project (Feldschwarm©) [5], the development of the cable carrying vehicle and the operation strategy for this grid connected swarm are scope of GridCON2.The focus of this publication is the automation approach for this system where feasible field work plans are generated with respect to vehicle and swarm limitations. A hierarchical control structure executes and compensates for disturbances to keep to operation coordinated whilst being supervised by a remote operator. The developments in electrification and automation of the GridCON projects are part of the journey towards a resource-saving, low-emission agriculture where the locally generated energy from agricultural enterprises (biogas, photovoltaic, wind etc.) can be directly and locally consumed.