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March 2005
Gordon Leathers
Wheat, Oats and Barley magazine
One of the most important farmhands in modern agribusiness is the computer, and everyone knows how useful it is for accounting, forecasting and correspondence. Now, thanks to Outback eDrive [and to GPSteer] from CSI Wireless of Calgary, the computer is also the hand that steers the tractor ñ and it works with a degree of meticulous precision that's unheard of with any human operator.
"The product is hands-free so once you've done your first pass and drawn an A-B line, you set the controls and it continues across the field in parallel runs," explains Jeff Adams, Public Relations Manager at CSI Wireless and its Satloc subsidiary. "The driver still has to take control at the end of the row just to turn it around and then the system will lock it into the path again, continue on and then you can be hands-free again."
What the system does is replace the operator's eyes and hands with an antenna, a central processing unit (CPU) and a valve block. The antenna collects signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and determines the tractor's exact position in the field. Depending on the quality of the GPS receiver, it can be accurate to within 3 three to four inches, or even to within one inch. You enter the width of your seeder, sprayer or harrow, and the CPU calculates its position using data from the GPS.
With this technology, the tractor actually drives itself, and this presents three advantages to the wired farmer. First and foremost, it relieves operator fatigue. Second, it operates with tremendous precision so there's no skip and very little overlap. Third, since the unit is receiving all its information from the GPS receiver, it can see in the dark and can work anytime, day or night.
"With Outback eDrive, you can go any width,î says Ron Sabourin, a farmer from St. Jean , Man. ìYou don't have to set markers or anything. You can go from one piece of equipment to another, and all you do is go into the computer, adjust the width and away you go."
Sabourin has been farming for 30 years and this is the third year he's been running tractors with this auto-steering system. He says running equipment now is easier and more accurate.
"This auto-steer also remembers contours so if you're working along a river, and of course they bend and meander, I push a button and follow the river all the way," says Sabourin. On the next pass the software remembers the bends and continues to drive the tractor along the same contours. This saves him time and money on his input costs.
When Sabourin first got his Outback eDrive unit, he was applying anhydrous ammonia and he didn't have markers on the anhydrous cultivator. He switched off the auto-steer and ran up and down the field twice. Then he switched it back on. After calculating the difference in overlap, he figured that for every quarter of section of land that he used the auto-steer, he saved $100 in anhydrous, fuel and machine wear.
"It's little things but they all add up," says Sabourin. "Experienced farmers will tell you that even with good driving, about a meter of overlap is fairly common. The accuracy of a good Outback eDrive system brings that down to six inches."
"When you multiply the difference between six inches and three feet of overlap just in one pass, multiply that by a field, and multiply that by a farm, you start to see the huge savings that can be achieved in fuel and spray and time and everything else," says Jeff Adams. "Most customers tell us they pay for Outback eDrive or GPSteer, in terms of saved fuel, fertilizer, insecticide, time and so on, in 12 to 24 months."
Adams says his company has done experiments where they've had guys drive tractors all night long with no lights, and in the morning, everything looked okay.
"Although driving a tractor in a field may sound easy, anyone who's spent time in the cab knows how exhausting it can be," says Adams .
Maintaining perfect straight rows with a wide implement and then eyeballing the position to prevent overlap takes a lot of practice and a lot of concentration. An experienced driver can do these things fairly well. But even the best of them get tired, especially after several grueling 16-hour days in the cab. Human operators are also inclined to over-compensate when they find they're out of line. This leads to a lot of skip or overlap as the units gets straightened out. A tractor equipped with eDrive or GPSteer means that top-rate precision is maintained throughout the pass. Since you don't need your hands, you're free to look around and check progress, monitor controls or see to anything else that requires attention.
Adams says farmers who have Outback eDrive [or GPSteer] have taken along their laptops and worked on their billing, sent emails, checked grain prices and so on between passes. In terms of operator convenience and fatigue, it's a huge step forward for them.
These units run anywhere between US$7,100 with an entry-level GPS receiver (US$5,000 if you already have the receiver) to as high as US$17,900 for a GPS receiver that's accurate to one inch. The units are transferable from one tractor to another, and they're easy to install.
Some farmers think eDrive or GPSteer is economical enough that they buy two or three of the units rather than just one so they don't even have to bother transferring them from one tractor to another. If you're interested in the Outback eDrive or the GPSteer system, you can get more information by logging on to www.outbackguidance.com , www.csi-wireless.com , and/or www.satloc.com .
Gord Leathers is a freelance writer based in Winnipeg