Perfbet – Development of Knowledge on Energy Consumption and Uses of Agricultural Machinery: Application to Improving Harvest Operation Performance

During a CASDAR project completed in 2014, ITB and partners Irstea, FNCUMA, and FNEDT pooled experimental and survey data from five beet harvesting machines monitored over a full season, compiling metrics such as speed, GPS position, engine regime, and fuel consumption. They identified key performance indicators—fuel consumption per hectare and working time per hectare—and analyzed the influence of harvest conditions, driver behavior, machine type, and field geometry. Technical and economic surveys of equipment manufacturers, CUMA cooperatives, and contractors provided detailed data. These findings underlie the development of Perfbet, a web tool enabling users to select and organize beet harvest operations for optimal efficiency.