Challenges and State of the Art in the Agricultural Machinery Electrification

This chapter introduces the peculiarities of agricultural machinery and describes the main component of traditional machine configurations. After the description of the conventional powertrain of farming tractors and highlighting the most relevant challenges for electrification, it reports a description of the electrically driven internal combustion engine (ICE) auxiliaries. The most widely adopted structure in conventional powertrain for mechanical front‐wheel drive tractors. Besides the main powertrain, also ICE auxiliaries can be electrified in order to improve their consumption reducing parasitic losses. When electrified, the auxiliaries can be controlled more effectively operating, for example, with a speed controlled independently from the ICE speed. The two most demanding auxiliary loads are the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air‐conditioning) compressor and the cooling fan: both are responsible for about 10% and 30% of ICE‐rated power during onfield and idling operations, respectively.