Technological trends in digital agriculture and their impact on agricultural machinery development practices

Resumo

As the world’s population grows, agriculture is facing an increasing demand for productivity, efficiency, and sustainability to ensure food security. The adoption of a production system similar to that of Industry 4.0 is considered to be a way to address this problem in agriculture. This approach can be seen in precision agriculture. This new technological trend has an impact on agricultural machinery and the way it is designed. Therefore, the objective of this article is to provide an overview of digital systems in agricultural machinery and their impact on equipment design processes in a developing digital agriculture scenario. Digital devices are already present in several types of equipment, performing or supporting tasks such as automatic steering and variable-rate applications. In addition, a large number of sensors monitor the crops, environment, production losses, and operational parameters in real time. Technological breakthroughs, however, are the adoption of emerging alternatives such as IoT, electric power vehicles, and small autonomous machines, which are already being implemented in other areas. Consequently, the development process of agricultural machines now involves several specialty domains besides the usual mechanics, compelling companies to employ the transverse concurrent engineering of several specialties at the same design situation and moment.