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Articles containing the keyword 'Levels of Automation (LoA)'

Category : Research note

article id 24062, category Research note
Jussi Manner, Hagos Lundström. (2025). The effect of boom-tip control on harvester time consumption in Picea abies dominated final-felling stands: case study. Silva Fennica vol. 59 no. 1 article id 24062. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.24062
Keywords: productivity; automation; cut-to-length logging; crane work; Intelligent Boom Control (IBC); Levels of Automation (LoA); operator assistance system
Highlights: Two experienced harvester operators (A and B) participated in the study; Operator A reduced time consumption by 10% with boom-tip control, while operator B neither saved nor lost time; Operator A’s time savings occurred exclusively during the work element felling-processing; Variation in the results between the operators emphasizes the need for further research involving a larger pool of operators.
Abstract | Full text in HTML | Full text in PDF | Author Info

Crane work accounts for the majority of a harvester’s productive working time. Boom-tip control assists operators by coordinating end-effector movements, offering the potential to improve productivity. With boom-tip control, the operator steers the boom-tip directly rather than controlling individual crane joints. Despite being commercially available for several years, research on boom-tip control’s impact on harvester work – particularly compared to forwarder work – is limited. Therefore, this study analysed the effect of boom-tip control on harvester time consumption (s m-3) in final-felling stands, involving two experienced operators (A and B) driving a John Deere 1470G harvester. John Deere’s boom-tip control system, Intelligent Boom Control (IBC), was compared to a conventional boom-control system. Data were analysed separately for each operator. While operator A saved time using IBC, no statistically significant difference between IBC and the conventional boom-control system was observed for operator B. For operator A, IBC reduced total time consumption (s m-3) by approximately 10%. The results indicate a need for further research, involving multiple machine manufacturers, operators, and work environments such as thinning and final-felling stands. Moreover, future studies should preferably utilise automated data recording to generate large follow-up datasets on harvester work.

  • Manner, Skogforsk, Uppsala Science Park, 751 83 Uppsala, Sweden ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4982-3855 E-mail: jussi.manner@skogforsk.se (email)
  • Lundström, Skogforsk, Uppsala Science Park, 751 83 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: hagos.lundstrom@skogforsk.se

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