Growing urgency for intelligent large combine harvesters

In the development of China's combine harvesters toward large-scale, high-efficiency, multi-functional and intelligent control, there is a lack of intelligent technologies such as increased feed rate, adaptability to multiple crops, and automatic regulation of operation quality. The major project "Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Technology and Equipment" of the National 863 Program, led by the Agricultural Equipment Industry Technology Alliance, has carried out research on intelligent technology for large combine harvesters.

Targeting crops with typical characteristics such as wheat, rice, rapeseed and soybean, and aiming to use automation technology to improve harvesting efficiency, multi-functional utilization and reduce unthreshed losses, researchers have made important progress in filling in blank parameters of crop harvesting machinery characteristics, intelligent monitoring of operation processes and quality, and application of intelligent technology in large combine harvesters.

It is understood that the project has achieved breakthroughs in key common technologies such as micro-topography self-controlled profiling wide header, low-damage gradient threshing and separation, high-throughput efficient material screening, and low-loss grain clean airflow cleaning; developed an intelligent fuzzy control method and system for multi-factor working parameters of combine harvesters under different varieties, different time domains, and different climatic conditions, providing a decision-making basis for intelligent control; developed an intelligent control method and device for fuel saving and consumption reduction based on load feedback at constant working speed of the combine harvester, improving fuel utilization; developed a multi-objective parameter sensing and highly suitable operation quality intelligent regulation system for combine harvester forward speed, threshing cylinder speed, separation concave clearance, fan speed, etc.; integrated bus technologies such as automatic navigation, fault diagnosis, process detection, and parameter regulation, and applied them to a 10kg/s large grain combine harvester, making it the combine harvester with the largest feed rate and the highest degree of intelligence independently developed in China. It can realize functions such as automatic driving, automatic fault detection and early warning, loss monitoring, operation performance regulation, and online yield measurement, keeping pace with mainstream world technology and breaking the foreign technology monopoly.

At present, the number of combine harvesters in China exceeds 1.5 million units, with annual production and sales of about 300,000 units, and there is an urgent demand for intelligent technology upgrading. The technological radiation of this project provides technical support for the upgrading of China's combine harvesters.