System and method for estimating or predicting the life state of components in an agricultural baler

An agricultural baler, comprising:

• a baling chamber;
• a reciprocating plunger for compressing gathered agricultural material into bales within the baling chamber, the reciprocating plunger being driven by a crank arm, the crank arm being rotated around a crank arm axis by a crank gear;
• a first sensor assembly configured to generate signals relating to forces applied to the reciprocating plunger and one or more baling components configured to at least partially carry forces applied to the plunger;
• and
• a controller configured to
• automatically determine one or more operating conditions including at least a type of an agricultural material being baled, based at least in part on one or more of detected operating parameters of the baler and a detected geolocation of the baler,
• receive one or more input signals from the first sensor assembly and record at least the corresponding forces applied and the determined one or more operating conditions for a respective bale,
• aggregate data comprising the recorded forces for each bale and respective type of agricultural material baled,
• determine and store baseline or threshold values for the aggregated data respective to the one or more operating conditions,
• compare the aggregated data for a particular bale and/or the baler with the baseline or threshold values having a similar or equivalent one or more operating conditions, and
• generate at least one output signal relating to the aggregated data, further based at least in part on a type of agricultural material to be baled.