Riassunto analitico
Nowadays the detection of contaminants in the food industry is widespread on a large scale and it is based on different technologies. However, future approaches can imply the detection of contaminants directly in the agricultural environment.
In particular, the detection of non-ferromagnetic metal is of great interest when it comes to forage cruiser. Indeed, cans, tin sheets or other metal pieces present on the field can spoil the chopped forage or damage the machine. Currently, nothing is implemented in this type of harvesters and the technology transfer from the food industry is not straightforward. The main difference is that industrial lines are a controlled environment while agricultural world implies more unpredictable variations of environmental condition. Furthermore, the available space on the machine is limited because the designed system has to fit the body of the forage cruiser.
The purpose of this thesis is to design a detection system for non-ferromagnetic metals for agricultural applications.
After a literature study on the existing industrial detection techniques the balanced coil principle has been selected. The design of the proposed system has been performed through simulations in which the effects of the environment were also considered.
A prototype has been realized and measurements in different environmental conditions have been conducted. The collected data are exposed in comparison with simulations. Experimental measurements show that the proposed system is suitable for agricultural applications. Non-magnetic metal pieces are detected with an acceptable accuracy even in the most difficult environmental conditions. Finally, possible improvement and future works are illustrated.
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