Opportunity for

• Agricultural machinery manufacturers interested in partnering to co-develop and commercialise an electric grains harvester.
• University with computer modelling capability to support R&D for development of a prototype. 

Opportunity description

Industry challenge:

The grain harvesting industry and more broadly, agricultural machinery has historically focused on performance and effectiveness and little attention has been paid to energy efficiency. The global community and legislators now have high awareness of the need to reduce carbon footprint, especially in agriculture but the opportunities to achieve this have been limited.

Agricultural machinery has in general become more complex, requiring specialist skills for repair and maintenance as the technologies for drives, sensors, automation have evolved. The current business models for large manufacturers means costs of repairs are high and the opportunity for repair by the end user has become more difficult. Our design aims to provide a machine that can be repaired using basic skills, minimal tooling or specialist expertise, using components that are commonly used in the electrical industry. Our concept aims to provide a machine that is more a platform that can be updated and upgraded as new technologies are available in drives, automation and control systems.

Current opportunity:

This is an opportunity for Commercial partners, researcher partners and other collaborators who want to help change the current paradigm for development of agricultural machinery and significantly reduce farm operating costs and carbon footprint. Our present focus is the development of an electric combine harvester.

We have developed unique intellectual property based on the design of an energy efficient harvester that is fully electric, powered initially by a diesel generator but with potential to convert to hydrogen power if that technology becomes readily available.

We recognise we can't do this alone. Our development path has included 9 years operation of an on-farm prototype, with some great learnings by conversion of an existing machine, but this new design has evolved and will be built from the ground up to maximise the benefits that can be achieved by electrification.

We need appropriate and suitably skilled computer modelling expertise to verify and optimise our concept, we need investment to continue our research and to secure the intellectual property that we have developed to ensure that the benefits in Australia are maximised. Computer modelling will reduce design risks and development time and maximise the energy savings by optimising the design.

Opportunity background:

Malcolm Lucas is a primary producer and inventor and Terry Krieg a primary producer and electrical engineer, and both based near Gawler in South Australia. Malcolm has a passion for developing and building agricultural machinery since childhood. Terry is a qualified consulting high voltage electrical engineer in the power industry with experience around the globe advising large corporations, governments and users on power industry issues. Together we have formed the LINTTAS Electric Company. We have discussed our early design concepts with international research university, the Technical University of Dresden and they share our interest in agricultural machinery electrification. We have also discussed our aims and objectives with large global machinery suppliers to gauge interest.

To achieve our aims for sustainable grain harvesting we have developed a new concept for grain separation that we have called LINTTAS, or Linear Flow, Turbulent Air Threshing System. This system was designed by us to maximise the benefits that can be achieved by electrification of the grain separation process in a combine harvester. We are currently in the process of registering our patent for the LINTTAS system.

Potential other applications:

The technologies for electrification that we have developed can be applied to a wide range of agricultural machinery, not only harvesters. Arguably, the combine harvester design that we are currently developing is the most challenging or all potential applications for this technology.

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