Simulation and Optimization of Wheeled Electric Robots and its Effects to Achieve Sustainable Development

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Biosystem Engineering, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran.

10.22084/best.2025.30904.1008

Abstract

Contemporary agriculture faces a dual challenge: meeting the food demands of a growing population while mitigating its environmental footprint. Conventional farming machinery, despite its vital role in boosting productivity, contributes to irreversible ecological damage through greenhouse gas emissions and soil compaction. In this context, electric agricultural robots emerge as a transformative solution, offering three key advantages: eliminating direct pollutant emissions, significantly reducing carbon footprints, and optimizing energy consumption. These advanced technologies enable precise, controlled operations that maintain soil structure and microbial ecosystems while ensuring long-term agricultural sustainability. Critical operational parameters such as working speed and depth have been identified as decisive factors in energy efficiency—their optimization could mark a turning point in harmonizing high yields with sustainable practices. This technological shift not only addresses current environmental challenges but also establishes a new paradigm for agricultural mechanization, charting a sustainable future for the industry. A robot pulling a rotivator was simulated in MATLAB version R2022b software, and all the forces applied to the robot and rotivator were applied. To get the answer closer to reality, the soil was considered variable. The goal is to find the best working mode of the robot that has the lowest energy consumption. The highest amount of energy consumption was observed at high speeds (10 km/h). By increasing the depth of the rake from 5 to 10 cm, energy consumption increased by 19% on average. The largest amount of energy loss was included in the pseudo-made set of tires. About 40 to 45 percent of the total losses in the simulation set are assigned to tires. The findings showed that the depth of work has a greater effect on losses than the speed of movement. The intensity of the operation significantly affects the battery losses. In the lightest mode, the battery loss was 1.2 Wh/km and in the heaviest mode, the battery loss increased to 6.1 Wh/km. In general, it can be concluded that the robot should be used at a low depth and at low speeds in order to have the lowest amount of energy consumption. Less use of energy and renewable resources is essential to achieve sustainable development.

Keywords

References

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Biosystems Engineering and Sustainable Technologies
Volume 1, Issue 2
December 2025
Pages 11-19

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