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Farming goes high tech and hands free
April 23, 2008

Photo: Beeline

FIRST TO MARKET WINS
The first-to-market with hands-free automatic steering for Ag vehicles was Denver, CO based BEELINE Technologies, Inc. in 1998 with their aftermarket product the BEELINE Navigator RowCrop. BEELINE uses a blend of two technologies,  GPS (Global Positioning System) and INS (Inertial Navigation System) along with advanced algorithms to accurately guide a tractor in a straight line or follow a contour line. Navigator RowCrop offers GPS static accuracy of +/- 2 cm (sub-inch). This year in North Dakota, BEELINE launched the third generation in hands-free Steering Assist the BEELINE Arro, a product with sub-meter accuracy but at much lower cost than Navigator. BEELINE says that Arro is an entry-level product whose accuracy is fully up gradable to sub-inch if the farmer requires it. 

OTHERS
Tractor companies are pushing the hands-free trend and have brought factory-installed products to market. AGCO Corporation signed a deal with BEELINE Technologies, Inc. for OEM hands free automatic steering products for their entire range of Ag vehicles including Challenger, Fendt, and Massey Ferguson. AGCOs factory fit branded product Auto-Guide was offered this year for the Challenger MT series tractors. John Deere developed their own hands free automatic steering option, Auto-Trac for their tracked machines.

WANT AUTOMATIC STEERING?
Scott Schmidt, a Californian farm manager says overlap at Farming D when using their narrowest implement – a chisel, was anywhere between 30 and 45%. Schmidt did not have to calculate the ROI to help him make his buying decision. "When we were disking without the BEELINE we were getting about 8.5 acres per hour. With the BEELINE were getting 12 acres an hour.” For Schmidt the move to hands free automatic steering showed a productivity increase of 42% and his work records for ripping show an even greater improvement at 53%.
Not too far away at Woolf Enterprises, VP of Farming Operations, Rick Blankenship is seeing similar results.
In the same 12 hour shift we are covering 20% more ground. Before BEELINE, we ran two Listers on two 14-hour shifts and covered about 120 acres per shift. Now with the BEELINE we can cover about 275 acres in a 24 hour period with one tractor.” For Blankenship hands-free automatic steering has meant reducing input costs, increasing productivity, optimizing equipment utilization and maximizing farmable acres. 

BEYOND CALIFORNIA
The gains from hands free steering aren’t limited to California. Quincy Farm Chemicals is located in the Quincy Valley in Washington State. QFC run a custom application business – they apply fertilizer, spray for farmers on a contract basis, and have installed BEELINE in all their Terra-Gators. Pete Romano, owner of QFC and President of the Agricultural Retailers Association said uptake of the technology from his customer’s point of view was nearly 100%.  "The customers definitely want automatic steering if there is a choice. Earlier this spring we were running our fourth machine in our big push and we boxed ourselves into a corner because growers wanted a BEELINE and the fourth machine did not have it. There has been excellent reception in the grower community. It is due to the quality of the spreading jobs that we can do with the BEELINE; it is far superior to anything we can do without it.  We do a multitude of crops. Growers spend anywhere from $40 per acre up to $200 an acre per application. For things like potato mixes where you’re putting on heavy fertilizer rates, there’s no doubt that you want accurate spreading.” 


Photo: Beeline

FARMERS USE AUTOMATIC STEERING TO SAVE MONEY
All across the USA, tech-savvy farmers are letting computers guide their tractors for them. This is reducing the costs of farming and increasing productivity in tough times. They are reducing the cost of overlaps and skips. When working a field without automatic steering, the farmer relies on his eyesight and feel of the machine to ensure that all of the ground is worked and none is missed. As a result, much ground is worked twice to make sure that none is skipped.   Studies around the world show that overlap is usually at least 10% with some drivers recording overlap of up to 25% as fatigue sets in and lighting conditions deteriorate. This means that human error represents 10% or more of the cost in the farming business, which is known for its narrow profit margin. Human error costs 10% of the fuel, time and tractor hours used to process the field. 10% of the seed, chemical, and fertilizer cost to grow the crop. Therefore, if it costs a farmer $80 to grow one acre of wheat he’s spending $8 more than he needs to. Over 1,000 acres that’s $8,000 or a year’s repayments on a new farm truck or three semesters worth of college tuition for a child. With fuel costs hitting all time highs, the numbers are getting bigger. If you are raising Canola to replace $4.29 / gallon diesel fuel at a yield of about 200 gallons per acre or $850 per acre cash crop.

NEWEST ADDITION
Automatic steering systems are the newest addition to the array of automation in a tractor cab and have the greatest potential to change farming forever. A look shows that along with the pedals and levers for normal operation are buttons and touch sensitive screens that will perform 15 pre-programmed operations, computers that change the application rates of chemical sprays and machines to adjust to the land. All of this is going on within just a couple of square feet inside a modern agricultural tractor cab

GO ROBOTS ! 

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, LLC
Racing to build technology that saves soldier's lives.
390 4-Mile Rd. S.
Traverse City, MI 49686-8411
(231) 946-0187, (231) 883-4463 Cell
pgrayson@aimagic.org
AIM: http://aimagic.org
Robot Club: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/robotcluboftraversecitymi/
CE Magazine: http://www.controleng.com/blog/1180000318.html

Posted by Paul Grayson on April 23, 2008 | Comments (0)