The development of a soil-movement measurement system to create more precise numeric soil models

Abstract

A well developed and industrialized agriculture system is one of the bases of our modern society, but it introduces a problem, as it also is a large contributor to climate change. Even only the use of unoptimized tools in itself has a multidimensional impact. Pulling such a tool through the soil requires more energy (and thus more fuel) than necessary. Because of its imperfect shape it will inevitably move more soil than needed. Furthermore during soil-tillage the amount of CO2 emissions and the water retention of the soil also depend on the movement of the soil. This last phenomenon also causes a decline in yield and that can increase the level of deforestation. By studying the aforementioned soil-tool interactions it is possible to help optimize the tools being used. But testing each revision of a developed tool is not only pricey but also time consuming. In situations like this modeling can come to the rescue. By utilizing the discrete element method (DEM) we can create an adequate numeric model of a given soil type. But calibrating such a model is non-trivial. By measuring the inner movement of the soil during test soil-tool interactions it is possible to adjust to the model until the modeled soil movement closely resembles the measured values, for this the creation of a tracker device was needed, which can be placed into the soil during the interactions and measure how much it moved during it. In our paper we show how we developed such a device and how we used increasingly more techniques from basic data processing to AI to recreate the device’s path. We also describe the development of the soil model and how we plan to utilize our findings to aid the design of better soil tools in the future.