Requirements and Challenges in the Design and Potential of Smart and Efficient Winch Assisted Forestry Machinery

Recent regulations on greenhouse emissions and pollutants are forcing forestry machinery companies to target new solutions for limiting emissions while maintaining performance through electrification or hybridization. Moreover, thanks to the availability of new and affordable mechatronic and IoT technologies, concepts such as sustainable, smart, and precision forestry are gaining credit. In this work, the activities on winch assisted forestry machinery carried out at the FiRST and AFI labs of the unibz are reported. These are firstly revised in terms of requirements and constraints. Then, with electrification being still in its infancy in this sector, design challenges for electrification/hybridization are discussed. Finally, mechatronic solutions for making them ready for smart and precision forestry are presented and discussed.