Off-Highway Vehicle Engineering
While other units in the Ginn College of
Engineering are focused on automotive and transportation needs, Biosystems Engineering
complements those efforts by focusing on engineering for off-highway vehicle systems.
This includes machines and systems used in agriculture, forestry, construction,
and recreation. By working in this area, Biosystems Engineering brings to bear
its unique relationships with the National Soil Dynamics Laboratory, the USDA
Forest Service, and Caterpillar Corporation to address contemporary problems in
safety, performance, and productivity of off-highway vehicle systems. This work
will include continued development and deployment of geospatial tools and sensors
for precision agriculture/precision forestry techniques, improved sensors and
controls for machine optimization, management and processing of vehicle performance
information, design improvements for greater vehicle safety and performance, and
reduced environmental impacts from vehicle operation.
Faculty working in this area include:
Current and recent projects in this area include:
- Precision agriculture and precision forestry
- Improving transport efficiency and cost of forest product transport systems
- Variable rate nitrogen application systems
- Subsurface drip irrigation systems integrated with precision agriculture techniques
- Improving forest machine operator protective structure resistance to thrown objects
- Modeling rollover behavior of excavator-based forest machines
- Portable timber bridge systems for temporary stream crossing structures
- Developing yield mapping systems for forest harvesting machines
- Standard plans for portable timber bridges using sawn lumber from western lumber
species
- Variable rate forestry herbicide application systems
- Mapping and performance monitoring for manual herbicide spraying operations
- Energy requirements for tillage in forestry site preparation
