If spatial mapping of the performance of a tractorimplement
system is required, providing the opportunity to
accounting for field variability, it is necessary to add a GNSS
(Global Navigation Satellite Systems) to locate the instantaneous
position of the vehicle (Yahya et al., 2009). With this
approach there is often the need for high sampling rates [e.g.
333.3-Hz sampling rate in Kim et al. (2000); 1-kHz, averaged at
1 Hz, in Yahya et al. (2009)]. The size of the collected experimental
dataset can be large and potentially problematic for
storage and processing.
When an assessment of TE is performed on an operating
tractor, it is generally not possible to isolate the powertrain
from the rest of the vehicle and then submit it to specific
tests; the assessment is usually performed on global outputs
that are representative of the real working conditions but
influenced by many sub-systems, and thus, often difficult to
interpret. For these reasons, researches where only the
transmission is tested by pulling under controlled conditions
and with dedicated equipment are quite rare but
interesting (Kim, Kim, Park, & Huh, 2007; Molari & Sedoni,
2008).