Dansk Landbrugsrådgivning
High accuracy steering - A revolution in agriculture
Hans Henrik PedersenDanish Agricultural Advisory Service
Danish Crop Production Seminar 18. January 2007, Herning, DK
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Denmark
• Overlap 1 – 8 %• 160 tractors with auto steering - 10 cm • 40 tractors with auto steering - 2 cm• ≈ 0,7 % of full time farmers• 3 Farmers do CTF on 1.000 ha.
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Australia
• 200+ farmers do CTF on 1.000.000 ha.• 200+ farmers consider CTF on 1.000.000 ha• 200+ tractors with 2 cm auto steering• 1.000+ tractors with less accurate auto steering• 20-70 % of farmers use auto steering
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Measurements of accuracy- test procedure is under development
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Accuracy after interruption of signals
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35min. efter udfald
cm
JD dækket 5 min.
Fendt dækket 1 min.
time, min
Accuracy after interruption of signals
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
High accuracy requires own base
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Networks with high accuracy corrections –used by surveyors
www.referencen.dk www.gpsnet.dk (Leica) (Trimble)
Will auto steering companies develop interfaces?
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Random traffic is not sustainable
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Controlled traffic farming- sustainable future farming
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Controlled traffic farming- main decisions
• Working width
• Wheel space
• Position of tracks
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Trials with controlled traffic farming
• Grain, Europe: -9 → 21 %(Chamen et.al. 1992)
• Grain, Australia: avg: 16 %(Tullberg et.al 2001)
• Energy used during tillage -70 → -37 %(Chamen et.al. 1992)
• Energy used in total: - 17 %(Dickson & Campbell 1990)
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
High accuracy steering of implements
AF Tracker, AutoFarm.
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Automatic boom section control
TeeJet, Hardi, (AutoFarm)- at Agromek
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Approximate prices
• Auto steering, satellite based corrections:
18.000 € + 1.000-1.500 €/yr
• Auto steering with base station for correction: 32.000 €
• Steering of implement: 15.000 €
• Automatic boom section control:
3.000 – 5.000 €
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Costs and savings by autosteering- does not incl. benefits of CTF
Costs
1 %
2 %
3 %
Overlap byseeding
5%
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
120.0
140.0
160.0
180.0
200.0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Ha
Eu
ro p
r. h
a
1 Auto steering system with satellite correction5 years depreciation
Savings: seed, pesticides, machinery costs and labour
Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre
Auto steering – start of an revolution in agriculture
Auto steering
Controlled traffic
Interrow fertilization
Interrow seeding
Interrow weeding
Machine control, e.g. auto boom
Single plant treatment
“Precise agriculture”Robots
“You don’t drive cars over flowerbeds... We’re driving much heavier machines over the soils we hope to produce crops from and it’s causing a lot of damage”. Jeff Tullberg