This PhD project involves the advancement and development of a beta-version agricultural planning software, IIPOSS (Implement, Infrastructure and Pathway Optimisation System Software), that was conceived during an exploratory honours research project in 2015. The software program provides pathway planning solutions for Australian cropping systems as defined by equipment type, size, speed, and other input requirements.

A user-friendly simulation program such as IIPOSS, that is tailored and calibrated to Australia’s unique and diverse broad-acre cropping systems, will enable growers to make informed decisions about optimising the logistics planning and management for today’s manned farm vehicles, and tomorrow’s automated farm vehicles and in-field operations. This software will enable growers to optimise farming operations through virtual environment planning, and allow them to evaluate multiple scenarios to prioritise capital outlay and prevent time delays in critical growing season operations. This approach will lead to financial benefits across farming business operations, and future-proof them as farming business systems become more complex and potentially subject to variable climatic events. Through its development, it will also be possible for growers to infer other business decisions.

Once fully developed, the IIPOSS program should have at least the following capabilities:

• Running Costs and Times
  It will be possible to determine running costs and time taken for different operational scenarios such as different operator-machine combinations.

• Optimised Farm Layouts
  It will be possible to evaluate where to locate field boundaries, fencing requirements, equipment access points, depots, fertiliser dumps/herbicide refills, and native plant buffers. These decsions will be made with careful consideration of carbon drivers, marginal lands, and climate change, while also considering larger interventions such as deep ripping soil amelioration interventions, and reclamation of rocky zones using dozers/refinators etc. that boost production levels to potential reduce field area requirements.

• Investment Decisions
  It will be possible for growers to investigate the longer-term financial implications of decisions such as farm equipment replacement strategies, and location of key infrastructure in the case of farm expansion.

• Quantifying Paradigm Shift Technologies
  It will be possible to introduce autonomous vehicles into the software, and compare their performance to conventional farm systems.

One full scholarship is available for the successful applicant.