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The performance of simple tool shapes in terms of draft with speed of operation was evaluated in the soil bin facility of the Department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering, University of Saskatchewan. A hydraulic driven monorail system was developed, which was capable of speeds up to 10 m/s. The results showed that the disturbed soil remained close to the cutting path, and the elliptical shape exhibited the lowest draft increment with speed.

The potential exists for significantly reducing operating costs by minimizing missing and overlap in successive agricultural field operations, particularly in areas where the equipment is pull-behind and widths of over fifteen meters are common. This paper reports on the development of a sensor, consisting of a video camera and image processing system, to detect the location of the demarcation line between tilled-and-untilled soil and cut-and-standing crop. The development of hardware and software to achieve real-time operation under a variety of crop, soil and ambient lighting conditions is described.