Itzhak Shmulevich, Associate Professor
B.Sc. 1971; M.Sc. 1975; D.Sc. 1980 (Technion).

After receiving his D.Sc., Dr. Itzhak Shmulevich spent two and a half years at Texas A&M University, Texas, USA. He participated in several research projects including mechanical harvesting of sugarcane, sweet sorghum, and onion and worked on improving energy efficiency and automating field operations with propelling machinery that used a stationary power source. In 1983 he joined the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering at the Technion and since then, he has been involved in research projects that focus on theoretical modeling and experimental investigation of various agricultural machinery systems. These systems include harvesting, processing, conveying and storage of agricultural materials, applied mechanics in agriculture and utilization of modern computation and sensing technology.
Throughout the years, the main focus of his research activities has been related to rheological aspects of agricultural products and soils. His research activities include: developing advanced numerical methods to solve continuous problems, such as soil-structure interaction, off-road vehicle performance, soil/machine and soil/tire interaction, post-harvest processing and identifying physical properties of agricultural materials using acoustic, microwave and NIR technology. The most recent research studies have involved developing a non-destructive firmness and maturity testing device for fruits and vegetables, using their dynamic response to acoustic excitation, and investigation of microwave remote sensing for ground surface detection through plant foliage.

Research interests
Applied mechanics; soil mechanics; physical properties of agricultural products; sensors in agriculture; non-destructive firmness measuring of fruits and vegetables.

Selected publications

• Shmulevich, I., N. Galili and O. Cohen. 1992. "Two-dimensional model of a multi-jointed mobile truss system". Computers and electronics in Agriculture, 7:71-89.
  
• Rosenfeld, D., I. Shmulevich and G. Rosenhouse. 1993. "Three-dimensional simulation of acoustic response of fruits for firmness sorting". TRANSACTIONS of the ASAE, 35(4):1267-1274.
  
• Shmulevich, I., N. Galili and D. Rosenfeld. 1996. "Detection of fruit firmness by frequency analysis". TRANSACTIONS of the ASAE., 39(3): 1047-1055.
  
• Noyman, Y. and I. Shmulevich. 1996. "Ground Surface Sensing Through Plant Foliage Using FM-CW Radar". Computers and electronics in Agriculture, 15:181-193.
  
• D., I. Shmulevich and U. Mussel. 1996. "Wheel traction prediction on hard soils". TRANSACTIONS of the ASAE, 39(4):1275-1283.
  
• Shmulevich, I., G. Ronai and D. Wolf. 1996. "A new field single wheel tester". J. of Terramechanics, Vol. 33(3) 133-141.
  
• Shmulevich, I., N. Galili, and N. Benichou. 1996. "Sensing and analyzing the acoustic response of avocado and mango using flexible piezoelectric transducer". In: Acta Horticulturae, 421. 7 p.( In Press )