Development of a Novel System for Measuring Soil Stress and Rut Depth Under Off-Road Vehicle Tires

Nowadays, soil stress appears to be a serious challenge in sustainable agriculture, leading to the compaction of agricultural soils. This study presents a method for real-time measurement and recording of the amount of stress in the soil and tire rut depth. The amount of force required to pull the tire at any moment can be measured and recorded using this system. The data acquisition consisted of three parts: data related to the amount of stress at different depths of soil, the data related to the amount of tire rut depth in the soil, and, ultimately, the data representing the total force on the tire. In addition to the simplicity and flexibility of its transducers arrangement, the proposed method in this study offers a real-time measurement system that allows recording of stress data, rut depth, and traction force simultaneously.