Infield logistics planning for crop harvesting operations

Osman Ali (1) , Bart Verlinden (1) , Dirk Van Oudheusden (1)

1 Centre for Industrial Management

Crop harvesting operations are carried out with combine harvesters. The harvested product is transferred to tractors every time the combine's storage capacity is reached. The efficiency of the process can be significantly improved by computing optimal routes and interactions for the harvest vehicles. This infield logistics problem is formulated as integer linear programming vehicle routing problem with additional turn penalty constraints, but due to the large number of decision variables, it is not possible to solve cases of realistic field size. The solution time of the problem is considerably reduced by reformulating it as a modified minimum cost network flow problem. The result of solving the problem with the proposed models is a set of itineraries, covering the entire field. Each tour defines the combine's start and end points and the positions where the combine needs to be unloaded. The planning results minimize non-productivity and improve coordination between harvest vehicles.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

Osman Ali, Bart Verlinden, Dirk Van Oudheusden. Infield logistics planning for crop harvesting operations. Engineering Optimization, 2009, 41 (02), pp.183-197. ⟨10.1080/03052150802406540⟩. ⟨hal-00545360⟩