It should be discussed as the fundamental design principle that much consideration should be done about the safety of vehicle nowadays when human accidents are increasing due to rapid mechanization of farm machinery, even if the vehicle had very splendid performance. The idea to maintain the safety of vehicle in spite of the performance-down or cost-up will grow gradually. It may be a reflection of human impediment derived from the pragmatical mechanization and also an obligation of designers. From that viewpoint we developed an automatic control system to prevent the overturning of tractor. A countermeasure to use a safety cab or ROPS (Roll Over Protective Structure) would not assure the safety completely of both operators and machines. Our device consists of a detector of tractor tilting angle, an amplifier, setting dial of desired value, a switching circuit and hydraulic actuators. According to the action of this control system, when the tractor tilting angle reaches the setting value, two hydraulic cylinders attached to clutch and brake pedals act and the tractor stops automatically. This system acted successfully as expected. Furthermore in this paper some problems derived from this study are discussed.
展开▼
