Abstract
During rotary tillage operations, the draft force is jointly affected by operating parameters and soil conditions, exhibiting pronounced nonlinearity, time-varying behavior, and historical dependence, which all impose higher requirements on tractor operating parameter matching and traction performance analysis. A draft force prediction method that is based on a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network jointly optimized by a genetic algorithm (GA) and the bald eagle search (BES) algorithm, termed GABES-LSTM, is proposed to address the limited prediction accuracy and stability of traditional empirical models and single data-driven approaches under complex field conditions. First, on the basis of the mechanical characteristics of rotary tillage operations, a time-series mathematical description of draft force is established, and the prediction problem is formulated as a multi-input single-output nonlinear temporal mapping driven by operating parameters such as travel speed, rotary speed, and tillage depth. Subsequently, an LSTM-based draft force prediction model is constructed, in which GA is employed for global hyperparameter search and BES is integrated for local fine-grained optimization, thereby improving the effectiveness of model parameter optimization. Finally, a dataset is established using measured field rotary tillage data to train and test the proposed model, and comparative analyses are conducted against LSTM, GA-LSTM, and BES-LSTM models. Experimental results indicate that the GABES-LSTM model outperforms the comparison models in terms of mean absolute percentage error, mean relative error, relative analysis error, and coefficient of determination, effectively capturing the dynamic variation characteristics of draft force during rotary tillage operations while maintaining stable prediction performance under repeated experimental conditions. This method provides effective data support for draft force prediction analysis and operating parameter adjustment during rotary tillage operations.