Posted on 08/02/2019 7:13:48 AM PDT by Western Phil
Smart Ag introduced the concept of an autonomous tractor pulling a grain cart at the 2018 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa. However, due to weather conditions and a few glitches here and there, it didn’t do much actual demonstrating a year ago. A new and improved version is ready to roll, and spokespeople say they intend to have it operating so 2019 Farm Progress Show visitors can see its potential in Decatur, Ill., Aug. 27-29.
“We will be participating in the Ride ’n’ Drive display area at the show,” says Tim Norris, Eastern regional business director for Smart Ag. “We also plan to do an actual harvest demo with a Calmer Corn Heads demo machine.”
Smart Ag calls this driverless grain cart “AutoCart.” After unveiling the concept in August 2018, the company did beta testing on 12 farms across the Midwest last fall.
During my college studies in electrical engineering in the early 60s, I had a part time & summer job doing electronics stuff for an Ag Engineering Professor. I was the only electronics wizard employed by the Ag Engineering Department so I got handed around some when other profs had some electronic related work. One of these was a wire guided tractor system which used a wire loop on the ground. A two coil pickup system was attached to the front wheels of a tricycle type tractor. The tractor would follow the wire.
The department or the Ag School had a demonstration day for visiting farmers so they could see the research where their tax money went. One of the demonstrations was the wire guided tractor without an operator, but pulling a grain wagon. My job was to install the wire. I stapled it to the ground every few feet. On the day of the demo I started the tractor with a switch system from behind the grain wagon, followed it around the loop and switched it off at the completion of the loop. The Prof was on the PA stand explaining the system and describing the operation. We were up first and everything went well. This had been a concern, since spectators were allowed to roam through the area.
Year two: Same thing with the addition of grain in the wagon to be unloaded into a feed trough after the tractor and wagon had completed the loop. Everything worked well in the pre-demo run through, but we were scheduled in the middle of the program, no longer first. I started the tractor from the rear control panel & put it in gear. The tractor took off in a random direction, the front end swinging back & forth. It was searching for a lost signal. I turned it off and the Prof jumped off of the PA stand, ran through the crowd and drove the system around the loop from the control panel. He was able to complete his program, except that the grain missed the target at the end.
Would you please post a link to the video from the article? I can’t find it.
Now, I’m no farmer, but wouldn’t a guide wire buried in a field cause havoc with plows and harrows?
Anyway, a quick search for "Smart Ag AutoCart" found this: "Smart Ag AutoCart Autonomous Tractor for Grain Carts" from 18 months ago.
No longer any need. You now have GPS guided tractors for plowing, and GPS guided Combines for harvesting. The operator guides the tractor or Combine to a row, then the autopilot takes over and drives a perfectly straight line.
The Combine also monitors yield as it harvests, and provides a complete map of the field with yield data so the farmer knows what spots in the field may need more drainage, more watering, more fertilizing, etc.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/directorates/spacetech/spinoff/john_deere
Now, I’m no farmer, but wouldn’t a guide wire buried in a field cause havoc with plows and harrows?
so the concept of a wire on the ground was not unheard of. I remember seeing the wire but never seeing it used. We might still have it.
I was just pointing out what I thought was the extreme impracticality of using in-ground wire guidance. GPS has been used for plowing for quite a while now and is going to drive a lot of smart ag.
Those are spooky to watch with the tractor driver on a cell phone and no hands on steering or other controls. They can harvest and monitor FreeRepublic or whatever at the same time.
GPS has become so much more than I would have ever dreamed.
Yesterday I did a bit of shopping. I stopped at two grocery stores, Walmart, gas station and my pharmacy. I always bring my phone in case of emergency.
Later that afternoon, I was using the phone and noticed a message asking how I liked my shopping trip at XYZ grocery store. I wondered how they could know that as it is a small grocery and I used cash.
When I clicked on it, there were all the places I visited except for the Pharmacy. For some reason it missed that. I had used cash for some and a debit card for others.
I finally realized it was GPS. I didn’t really care except the whole thing is a bit scary. What if they implanted a chip under your skin? I could see some benefits such as finding a lost child but I really don’t want to go there.
A new lack of action show, Knight Farmer.
Go to “Settings”
Find “Location Services” (that’s what they call the gps)
Turn it off
Won’t get those “how did you like .... “ questions. Google won’t be able to track you quite so much. They can still get a general idea based on what cell tower you’re connected to at any given time.
If it’s an iPhone, the setting might have a different name and it won’t be google tracking you. It would be Apple then and they’re supposedly not as bad.
Thanks.
The most impressive use of GPS in farming I’ve seen is at the largest contiguous acreage farm east of the Mississippi which has 40,000+ acres.
Thousands of soil samples have been taken over the years in a grid fashion. The fertilizing process is guided by GPS which automatically controls the disbursement of minerals based on what the soil in each grid needs.
Saves them big bucks by not applying certain fertilizers to a soil that doesn’t need it.
https://www.farmprogress.com/large-farm-stresses-soil-fertility-levels
Its good to forget your phone at home every now and then.
NP
Just double checked it on our phone.
Settings >> Location
At top of that screen there’s a slider switch for On/Off
Mine is set to “high accuracy” with several choices below that. I think I will just leave it alone for now.
Correct. That’s how the “Intelligent Transportation System” R&D started out for highways, too. They were going to have guide wires and central control of all vehicles instead of autonomous, GPS guided vehicles that were aware of each other. That ITS concept was completely impractical.
John Deere funded this project as it did for a number of other studies by the Ag Engineering Dept. Burying the wire was a logical next step, but I don’t know if that ever happened. The physics is such that the farther you get from the wire, the weaker the signal is. In addition, one would expect some attenuation due to the soil & soil moisture. My only involvement in the study was to flip the switches on the back of the wagon for the demos. The Prof eventually went to work for John Deere.
Good friend of ours recently retired from Deere. He had a great career there managing a lot of interesting advanced tech projects.
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