Adaptive modeling and control of a manure spreader for precision agriculture

This paper describes a general modeling and control approach for automating various agricultural machines for precision farming applications. Experimental validation of control designs was performed on a modified New Holland manure spreader. An adaptive numerical modeling approach for describing the system input-output dynamics is proposed, and an optimal control that accounts for the control hardware limits is developed. Field tests have demonstrated the effectiveness of the theoretical development. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.