In the last decade, many studies have been conducted on tractor and agricultural machinery electrification. In particular, the electrification of power take-off (PTO)-powered implements could support many benefits, such as improved comfort and safety during implement connection, less noisiness, accurate control of the implement rotational speed, and fuel consumption reduction. However, commercially available tractors do not generate sufficient electric power to run electrified implements. A solution to this issue is powering eventual electrified implements with an external electric generator powered by the PTO and mounted with the front three-point linkage. This study aimed to evaluate the potential benefits of using this combination with respect to PTO powered implements. The types of implements analyzed in detail in this study were a sprayer and a mulcher. Field tests were performed acquiring performance, operational, and environmental parameters. Results show that on the electrified implements, the absence of the cardan shaft and hydraulic remotes shortened the time required for the hitching phase and reduced the in-work noisiness. Field tests demonstrated that the electrified implements permitted an improvement of the fuel consumption per hectare, up to 33.3% and 29.8% lower than their PTO-powered homologue for the sprayer and the mulcher, respectively.

A cheap technique based on an open-ended coaxial probe together with a vector network analyzer was set up. The vector network analyzer NanoVNA, a very tiny handheld device, is the affordable component that gives the instrumental chain a cost-effective perspective. The open-ended coaxial probe is a cable with an SMA gold-plated termination. User-friendly programs can be used to calibrate the instrument, carry out the measurements, and save data on PC. Simple liquid solutions (sodium chloride, citric acids, and saccharose) and more complex liquid food (milk, egg products, and fruit juice) were investigated. In addition, the temperature on the electric measurement of milk was measured to evaluate a possible influence for refrigerated storage products. The reflection parameters, such as the real and imaginary parts of S11, were used to build univariate and multivariate models. The best results in terms of coefficient of determination and related error were 0.997 (RMSE 0.05%) for sodium chloride and 0.965 (RMSE 0.71 °Brix) for fruit juice considering the univariate model, and 0.997 (RMSE 0.04%) for sodium chloride and 0.981 (RMSE 4.44%) for yolk using multivariate analysis. The proposed solution is non-destructive, cheap, rapid, and very attractive for potential lab and industrial applications.