Power Supplies for automated and efficient farming
Power solutions from Delta Electronics and Vox Power
Agriculture today faces important new opportunities offered by technology. On one hand, consumers are increasingly aware of sustainable farming methods; on the other, the misuse of pesticides and fertilizers for economic reasons has serious consequences for the soil. Furthermore, the difficulty in finding personnel willing to work under demanding conditions and the continuous decline in unskilled labor are decisive factors in land management.
How, then, can farmers reconcile economic returns with environmentally friendly farming practices? How can they limit the need for resources and related costs?
Self-driving agricultural robots represent a promising solution to the problem. For example, through machine vision (high-resolution cameras) and image support provided by Artificial Intelligence, these robots can choose where to intervene to remove weeds (pulling them out mechanically) or limit the use of pesticides to small areas rather than the entire crop. Thanks to these robots, the harvesting of fruit and vegetables can also be automated, as can the cleaning work required in specific environments such as barns and animal shelters. These intelligent robots can come in various forms: depending on the task, autonomous robots can be equipped with tools such as hooks and/or individually adjustable multifunctional robotic arms.
Autonomy first: Delta Electronics’ wireless charging solutions
The focal point of farm automation is undoubtedly the adoption of fully autonomous systems
also from the perspective of charging the onboard battery. The current level of battery development and the constant evolution they are undergoing, in fact, today allow for high energy autonomy. Delta Electronics, a Taiwanese company specializing in power conversion, offers wireless charging solutions (available power levels: 1 kW, 3.3 kW, 10 kW and 30 kW) with efficiency of up to 95% that do not require electrical connections, which in demanding environments such as agriculture would represent a significant limitation due to their fragility.
Simply by bringing the energy transmission plates together, these solutions allow the robot to be efficiently recharged, communicating via wireless radio with the charger to monitor the battery’s charge and health status. This scheduled cycle completely eliminates human intervention in the process.
The sophisticated coupling technology developed by Delta makes it possible to optimize magnetic energy transmission without requiring high coupling precision
and ensures excellent performance even in the presence of water, mud or dust, proving to be sufficiently robust for the task required in these environments. Ultimately, an extremely flexible and adaptable solution.
Periodic crop monitoring: Vox Power’s response with the VCCR300
Another important aspect of farm management is periodic crop monitoring, which in many cases covers extensive areas.
Farmers are constantly looking for technologies capable of monitoring their crops by automating image processing thanks to the use of machine learning models. One answer to this need is undoubtedly drones, which over time have seen an increase in performance and a decrease in costs, and whose use has expanded considerably, especially in the management of complex terrain. Vox Power, an Irish company specializing in innovative and efficient power supply products, has developed a new 300 W DC/DC converter specifically for onboard vehicle applications. It powers the drone’s control electronics, drawing energy from the main battery and adjusting the voltage to match that of the control electronics. The VCCR300, thanks to its wide input range, can manage various types of batteries and stabilize the output voltage as the main battery voltage varies. Three key characteristics — lightness, vibration resistance and compactness — are essential for applications such as those in drones. The VCCR300 combines all these characteristics and is ideally suited to be the solution in this field. Two proposals aimed at creating smart, tailor-made energy systems for agricultural applications, capable of generating profound, long-term change in the agriculture sector.
Delta and Vox Power products for Agritech are distributed in Italy by CONSYSTEM, which, thanks to its solid partnership with suppliers and the technical support of its Power specialists, guides customers in choosing the solution best suited to their needs, supporting them through every stage of the commercial cycle: from design-in to after-sales.
Article published in Selezione di Elettronica magazine in October 2024