Electronics For Off-Road Equipment

Use of electronics in off-road machinery will continue to expand. Electronic technology will speed improvements in productivity for farming, construction, forestry and mining. Applications of electronics to these products will proceed on a different course and at a different pace than those of consumer, manufacturing, automotive and on-highway products. Off-road production equipment customers demand that electronics provide easily recognized and cost-effective improvements. The most critical of their demands will be reliable performance in widely varying and often severe environments. Future off-road equipment electronics will be developed with increased focus on basic machine tasks. They will integrate multiple systems and interactively share information. Tractive machinery and implements will share data and provide reconfigurable instrumentation and controls which match the equipment to specific tasks. Integrated electronics will build on the capabilities of each part of the machine-engine, power train, hydraulics-and improve the working interface between the machine, the operator and the work site.