Biomass Bale Infield Logistics Scenario using Automatic Bale Picker

Abstract. Baling the agricultural residues on the field is one of the most important post-harvest operation. Producers often use farm vehicles such as baler, tractor with loader, and wagon for baling, collection, and transport of bales, respectively. Previous research on infield bale logistics, focused on the evaluating several direct bale aggregation scenarios, aggregation using bale stacks, and determining efficient bale stack locations, before transporting to the field outlet using Euclidean distances. However, the modern method of bale logistics use an automatic bale picker (ABP) that consolidates the activity of a tractor and wagon and collect several bales automatically, as well as accounting for turns while aggregating bales, considered in the present research was not reported so far. Several aggregation and logistic scenarios using tractor handling one bale at a time as the control method and ABP as the test method were studied to determine the effective operation of ABP. The field layout (original field areas ranging from 8 to 259 ha), bales, and the action of tractor and ABP, were simulated using user-developed program in ‘R‘ language. This research additionally considers the circular turning path (ABP and Tractor) for more accurate evaluation of logistic distances. The linear distance travel of the farm vehicles show that for a square field areas ranging from 8 to 259 ha with a central outlet, with the increase in the field area the travel length of ABP decreased when compared to the control method. Also, increase in the bales/trip decreases the aggregation distance of both the vehicles. Statistical analysis reveal that, in land areas (<24 ha), smaller capacity of ABP (11 bales per trip) is recommended. Power models developed to predict the aggregation distance with the parameter area, fitted good (R² > 0.99). General models modified Henderson model (R² = 0.985) and GAB model (R² = 0.999) also described well, involving the parameters area and bale group was also developed to predict the aggregation distance. Future work will concentrate on involving other parameters such as area shape, sub-field bale aggregation, and economic analysis of this study.

Keywords. Aggregation, Bales, Biomass, Harvest, Logistics, Vehicle path