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Conference paper2021Peer reviewed

Challenges and Opportunities for Automation of Agricultural Vehicles in Sweden

Latif, S.; Lindbäck, T.; Wallsten, J.; Karlberg, M.

Abstract

Swedish agriculture has gone through many changes over past years in terms of production, working methods, technology and use of natural resources. To achieve its vision of 2030, Swedish agricultural is rapidly transforming into more and more digitized and automated alternatives and the objective for the research presented in this paper was to identify challenges and opportunities by using automated agricultural vehicles. Data was collected through a survey and review of scientific literature and official reports. The current use and level of automation in Swedish agriculture was studied as well as aspects of productivity, profitability, ergonomics and sustainability by use of regular agricultural vehicles and farming practices. Furthermore, key challenges and opportunities related to automation of agricultural vehicles were further identified. It was found that farmers foresee several areas where automated agricultural vehicles could add value in their production (improved productivity, work environment, environmental impact etc.). However, to utilize these values, there are several challenges identified including technology readiness levels, security, responsibility distribution etc. By overcoming these challenges, it is plausible that the sustainability of agricultural operations with vehicles involved could be significantly improved through automation.

Keywords

Agricultural operations; Agricultural vehicles; Automated agricultural vehicles; Automation; Challenges; Ergonomics; Opportunities; Sustainability; Swedish agriculture; Work environment

Published in

Title: Proceedings of the 20th International and 9th Americas Conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems, ISTVS 2021
Publisher: International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems

Conference

20th International and 9th Americas Conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems, ISTVS 2021

SLU Authors

  • Wallsten, Johanna

    • Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science
Robotics and automation

Publication identifier

  • ISBN: 9781942112525

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/129790