Increasing interest in reducing pollutant emissions and fuel consumption of off-road vehicles has led to research into alternative
systems that aim to reduce the power dissipation of the hydraulic circuits equipping such vehicles. This work proposes alternative
hydraulic architectures for agricultural tractors in comparison with traditional systems. The alternative circuit architecture uses
independent metering valves and electronically controlled variable pump and involves different control strategies. The analysis is
performed with reference to the hydraulic circuit and operating conditions of the remote utilities of a medium-sized tractor. A
duty cycle for remote utilities is used for the analysis, obtained from experimental measurements on a tractor equipped with a
front loader. Traditional and alternative architectures are modelled using a lumped parameter approach. In this way it is
demonstrated that considerable energy savings can be achieved using the alternative architectures