Soil Compaction and Rolling Resistance Evaluation of a Locomotion System with an Adjustable Contact Patch for a Grape Transporting Robot

Soil compaction is a form of soil degradation which causes soil erosion, drainage difficulties, and loss of nutrients. To mitigate this issue, in agricultural farms several methods have been adopted. In this paper, the preliminary study of a locomotion system with adjustable contact patches is proposed. Aim is to reduce the compaction and optimize the rolling resistance of a grape transporting robot used in vineyard. A Finite Element Method (FEM) model supported by experimental results is developed to study the system