Combining high resolution images from a front-mounted camera with a GPS correction signal, AutoTrac Vision automatically guides selected tractors and self-propelled sprayers down established crop rows, and effectively provides guidance without the need for guidance lines.
Currently available for retro-fitting to 6M, 6R (not including models fitted with a panoramic glass roof), 7R and 8R/8RT Series tractors plus R Series self-propelled sprayers, the system is designed to optimise machinery operation in early-season cereal or maize crops.
Claimed benefits of continuously merging the two data streams include faster operation with less stress at speeds of up to 30km/hr, and productivity increases of up to 20%. The system also works at night and can also be used to guide implements, such as an inter-row hoe.
Users can also benefit from automated steering in fields that have been planted without a guidance system, or where an existing guidance line is unavailable. The camera detects the tramline or plant row and steers the machine along it, keeping the vehicle wheels in the centre between rows. In situations where it can’t detect a row, the system falls back to an auto-generated guidance line.
This fusion of a camera image and auto-generated A-B lines ensures that even in spots where the camera is unable to detect distinctive crop rows, the system can be relied on guide the machine, says the company.
AutoTrac Vision can see and detect early season row crops as long as the camera can differentiate between the crop rows and the soil – for example, working with a slurry tanker in early season maize, as soon as the plants are at least 10cm high.
