Electrification” and “digitalisa-tion” (with an “s” instead of
a“z,” as this was in Europe) werethe buzzwords at the biennial
gathering of the agricultural machineryindustry in Hannover,
Germany. Everytwo years, agricultural engineers fromEurope and
elsewhere brave overcast skiesand short November days to attend
theLand.Technik-AgEng conference, theAgritechnica trade show, and
the Club ofBologna.
AgritechnicaAgritechnica is billed as the leading
global gathering for the agriculturalmachinery industry. This
year, 450,000visitors attended the weeklong show to see displays by
2,800exhibitors. The internationalization of the attendees was
obvi-ous. The registrants for Agritechnica came from 138
differentcountries. The internationalization was also seen in
theexhibitors, with the majority from outside of Germany, and
inwhat they were displaying. For example, the Mahindra
&Mahindra booth included a tractor sold in Europe under
theIndian Mahindra & Mahindra brand that was built in Japan
byMitsubishi and equipped with a U.S.-made loader. One of thetwo
gold medal winners was a corn stalk crusher to reducecorn borer
overwintering. It was developed by Kemper, aGerman company owned by
Illinois-based John Deere.
The gold and silver medal innovation awards given atAgritechnica
were selected from 320 approved applicationsby an independent
expert committee and are a good indica-tion of where the industry
is heading. The other gold medalwas awarded to CLAAS for its
autonomous threshing systemfor combines. This auto-learning system
adjusts the combine,and the controllers communicate with each other
in a digital-ization of large harvesting machines. CNH’s New
Holland,one of CLAAS’s competitors, won a silver medal for a
systemthat uses GPS and proactively considers previous yields
andfield topography in its automation of settings. The 29
silvermedal winners included many innovations that used sensorsand
automation to improve the performance of a wide rangeof equipment.
Many years of research and development tocomputerize agricultural
equipment are now leading toincreasing commercialization of these
technologies. One areaof innovation that has emerged after much
university andindustry research is the use of cameras and imaging
systemsto support such varied activities as vehicle guidance,
seedbedpreparation, blossom thinning, and mechanical hoeing.
The advances in electrification were fewer but still
sig-nificant. One of the new products of interest was the
battery-powered e100 Vario tractor from AGCO Fendt. Using
thepowertrain of a 50 kW conventional tractor, it replaces
theinternal combustion engine, the air, fuel, and exhaust sys-tems,
and the radiator with a battery block, a compact electricmotor, and
the necessary electric control system. Substantialengineering was
required for practical charging, thermalmanagement, etc.
Another example of electrification was an electric trac-tion
drive on a plow that was developed through cooperationby the
tractor (John Deere), plow (Pöttinger), and drive traincomponent
(ZF) manufacturers. The PTO-driven SmartPower Generator Module,
mounted on the three-point hitchon the front of the tractor,
generates power and has controlledinverters to vary the frequency.
The ZF GPE50 eTracmounted to the plow has a high-speed asynchronous
motorwith a high gear ratio. This plow drive system reduces
thetractive force that the tractor needs to supply, as well as
thetractor’s tire slip.
Another trend was small autonomous robots. AGCOFendt won a
silver medal for its “Xaver” planting robot,which will work in
herds of machines from a few to dozens.Other manufacturers
concentrated on mechanical weed con-trol or spot spraying in
specialty crops. Naïo’s “Oz” smallweeding robot has already been
sold to 70 growers of herbsand spices in France. The purported
advantage of herds ofsmall robots is the wide range of scalability
and adaptation tosmall plots or large fields.
Of course, the farm equipment industry changes slowly,and many
of the exhibits were dominated by traditionalmachinery. In addition
to the equipment manufacturers,whose customers are farmers,
Agritechnica has seen an
RESOURCE March/April 2018 19
Robotic weeders, such as this one, were popular at
Agritechnica.
“
increasing presence of component manufacturers and suppli-ers,
whose customers are the equipment manufacturers. Thistrend is also
seen at other trade shows, such as the EIMAshow that’s held in
Bologna, Italy, in even-numbered years.
Land.Technik-AgEngBecause so many machinery engineers are
already in
Hannover to promote their company’s products and examine
thecompetition, the Land.Technik-AgEng conference is held twodays
before the opening of Agritechnica under the sponsorship ofVDI, the
German engineering society, and EurAgEng. This con-ference
concentrates on the engineering of farm equipment, withsome of the
presentations explaining the innovations presented atAgritechnica.
A sampling of session titles includes “AutomationTechnologies,”
“Combine Harvesters,” “Electric Drives,”“Traction,” and
“Communication and Information Technologies.”
There is also more involvement by industry, especially
todemonstrate product engineering, than at similar conferencesin
North America. For example, 52 of the 75 presentationshad at least
one author from industry, while only 38 had anauthor from a
university or government institution. Althoughmany presentations
were on traditional topics, there is anincreasing emphasis on
automation, communications, anddata management with each subsequent
conference.Unfortunately, due to the venue’s limited capacity of
about1,100, the Land.Technik-AgEng conference sells out quickly,and
not everyone interested could attend.
Immediately prior to Land.Technik-AgEng, there was ameeting of
the Agricultural Engineering and Technologiesgroup of ManuFuture to
discuss European Union researchfunding. Although there is some
uncertainty due to the
upcoming Brexit, there needs to be preparation for when FP8,the
current Framework Programme for Research andTechnical Development
(commonly known as Horizon 2020),ends in 2020 and will presumably
be replaced with FP9. Thetrend seems to be toward digitizing the
agri-food sector, withresearch topics on digital transformation,
connectivity,automation/robotics, new machine concepts, and
integratedenergy. The inclusion of farming in the Alliance for
theInternet of Things Innovation (AIOTI) and EIT Food from
theEuropean Institute of Innovation and Technology supports
theconcepts of “smart farming” and “smart food.”
The Club of BolognaAfter the Land.Technik-AgEng conference, 57
invited
members of the Club of Bologna met, representing 19 coun-tries.
The first day’s morning session dealt with Industry 4.0and its
impact on Agriculture 4.0. The widespread network-ing of Industry
4.0 in the manufacturing sector will surelyhave an analog in
agriculture.
The afternoon session dealt with ISOBUS’s (ISO 11783)present and
future. The standardization of equipment com-munications is even
more vital in Europe than in NorthAmerica because Europe has a
larger number of agriculturalequipment manufacturers, and tractors
often have mountedpowered equipment on both front and back. The
next day,there were presentations and discussions on
forestrymachines and the Nairobi Conference on
AgriculturalMechanization.
The common thread through all these events in Hannoveris that
agricultural machinery engineering is still a dynamicfield. With
good engineering, the equipment is becoming
much more precise and dynami-cally capable. The new equipmentcan
optimize its performance toimprove productivity and effi-ciency
while maximizing cropproduction and quality, and it cansupply
useful data to the overallfarm management system. Withthe
globalization and evolution ofthe agricultural machinery indus-try,
agricultural engineers need toremain up-to-date on worldwidetrends
through ASABE and othersources.
ASABE Fellow John Schueller,P.E., Professor, University of
Florida,Gainesville, USA, [email protected],and ASABE member
MarkusDemmel, Program Leader, BavarianState Research Center for
Agriculture,Institute for Agricultural
Engineering,Freising-Weihenstephan,
Germany,[email protected].
Cutaway models are a familiar feature of equipment shows.
20 March/April 2018 RESOURCE
