GPS World

Tag: John Deere

  • Drone platform guides earthworks projects

    Drone platform guides earthworks projects

    Kespry now offers a suite of capabilities that extends the value of aerial intelligence to the full life cycle of planning, bidding and managing earthworks projects in the major site construction industry.

    The company is focused on making it easier to capture, process, use and share high-resolution information from the field with its fully autonomous aerial intelligence system.

    Capabilities include grade planning and analysis, site and surface comparison including cut/fill visualization, and design plan development and compliance.

    Compared to other drone mapping solutions, the earthworks-specific tools enable construction companies to more accurately plan the work, improve their cost structure, and deliver safer working environments through frequent analysis of changes to the site, according to Kespry.

    The new capabilities are a result of customer and partner feedback, including from John Deere, dealers and clients.

    The new earthworks capabilities provide:

    • Faster and more accurate production of earthwork grading plans through on-demand drone data capture and analysis. Mass haul plans can be easily developed before projects begin with an entire site mapped and analyzed in hours. New tools also enable haul road planning to support more efficient site planning.
    • Reduced costs for grading project bids, with project estimates delivered faster than with traditional estimating techniques. Ongoing operational costs are also reduced with on-demand cut/fill analysis enabling close management of the project and specific bid requests.
    • More efficient and safer project operations with progress comparisons delivered through daily drone flights. This enables design plan comparison through project plan overlay onto Kespry data, reducing the complexity and cost of rework. Safety can also be improved through close monitoring of change and analysis of grades around the site.
  • Self-driving: Old hat for tractors

    Self-driving: Old hat for tractors

    Google and the big automakers might get the lion’s share of attention when it comes to autonomous road vehicles, but John Deere has been making self-driving tractors for more than 15 years.

    Among them is the 9RX tractor, which can steer itself, freeing the farmer to focus on business. The 9RX, introduced in August, features an articulated steering system and an optional Active Command Steering (ACS), which improves maneuverability in the field and line-holding ability at transport speeds.

    Hands-free driving: Ag companies take the wheel. (Photo: John Deere).
    Hands-free driving: Ag companies take the wheel. (Photo: John Deere).

    Farmers don’t need to navigate other traffic, just make optimal use of fields. Before farmers began using GPS to plan routes, a few feet would get reworked in every row. With GPS-based auto-driving accurate down to the inch, missed spots and repetition are avoided, saving farmers time, fuel and money.

    With a tractor the only moving object in a vast acreage, collisions are highly unlikely. Still, a driver still needs to be at the tractor’s wheel. Unlike consumer vehicles being developed for autonomous operation on public roads, the tractors don’t have external sensors on all sides to prevent collisions. A fully autonomous tractor, which doesn’t require a driver, probably won’t hit the market before 2025, according to John Deere.

    Inside the cab, farmers can equip their tractors with a variety of modular systems that allow computers control over operations, starting with a basic satellite guidance system and a touchscreen interface. From there, an add-on lets the tractor make precise turns autonomously, and another uses radio base stations set up around fields to supplement navigational accuracy. Besides the high-tech features, cabs of the 9RX have luxury touches such as an integrated refrigerator and high-quality sound.

    Laser Navigation

    Other companies that offer auto-steering include Case IH and Autonomous Tractor Corporation.

    Case IH offers guidance and steering for use on tractors, such as its Magnum 340 Tractor. (Photo: Case IH)
    Case IH offers guidance and steering for use on tractors, such as its Magnum 340 Tractor. (Photo: Case IH)

    Case IH provides steering and guidance tools for tractors, combines and sprayers. Its AFS AccuGuide auto guidance enables repeatable accuracy down to sub-inch levels. AFS RowGuide works with AFS AccuGuide to provide accurate, hands-off steering for corn harvests. Two mechanical touch sensors mounted on the corn-head dividers sense row position and provide guidance input in concert with GPS.

    Autonomous Tractor bills itself as a non-GPS system without dead spots or signal interference. Instead, it uses a proprietary laser-radio navigation system (LRNS) for sub-inch positioning data, along with its own FieldSmart software that allows farmers to “train” the tractor without programming.

    Sonar systems provide full perimeter safety, and pan-tilt cameras communicate via cellular to allow the farmer to monitor progress and remotely resolve issues.

  • John Deere to acquire Monsanto subsidiary Precision Planting

    Deere & Company and The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto, have signed definitive agreements for Deere to acquire Monsanto’s Precision Planting LLC equipment business and to enable near real-time data connectivity between John Deere farm equipment and the Climate FieldView platform.

    This news comes after a Nov. 2 announcement that the company had acquired Monosem, a European precision planting company. John Deere said it will work with Monosem’s existing engineers to further develop its precision planting technology.

    The agreements represent the industry’s first and only near real-time in-cab wireless connection to John Deere equipment by a third party.

    “To maximize the value of digital agriculture, farmers need solutions for simple and seamless collection of in-field agronomic data,” said Mike Stern, president and chief operating officer for The Climate Corporation. “As a result of these milestone agreements, farmers will experience the fastest, most frequent and highest resolution third-party connectivity between John Deere’s equipment and the Climate FieldView platform.”

    “The agreements we are announcing allow John Deere to extend the range of retrofit options available from Precision Planting to many more products and into new geographies,” said John May, president, agricultural solutions and chief information officer at Deere. John Deere strengthens its position as the most open platform in the industry both in our equipment and the cloud-based data management solution known as the John Deere Operations Center.”

    Under the terms of the agreements, Deere will purchase Precision Planting while Climate will retain the digital agriculture portfolio that has been integrated into the Climate FieldView platform. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of the relevant antitrust authorities to the extent required.

    Stern said, “Our agreements enable farmers to combine the industry-leading technology of John Deere equipment with Climate FieldView, the platform that offers farmers the broadest equipment connectivity in the industry backed by data science. This connectivity allows farmers to collect and directly share data to the Climate cloud, enables data visualization in the cab and supports the development of customized data science-driven insights.”

    “This strategic acquisition expands the John Deere precision agriculture business and accelerates our momentum as a market leader,” May said. “Strategic use of information is an important factor in successful agriculture. Today’s actions demonstrate John Deere’s ongoing investments to enhance the product and service solutions we offer our customers.”

    The companies said customers will have the option to share their current and historical agronomic data between the John Deere Operations Center and the Climate FieldView platform and seamlessly execute agronomic prescriptions with John Deere equipment.

  • Judge Rules Against LightSquared in Claims Against GPS Firms

    A U.S. judge dismissed the bulk of two lawsuits by LightSquared and equity owner Harbinger Capital Partners, reports Reuters. The suits accused Trimble, Garmin and Deere & Co. of misleading them about interference concerns and hastening the company’s fall into bankruptcy.

    In an opinion issued Feb. 5 in Manhattan federal court, Judge Richard Berman threw out Harbinger’s lawsuit, and denied nine of 11 claims by LightSquared.

    LightSquared has been in bankruptcy since 2012, when the Federal Communications Commission revoked its license to build a planned wireless network over concerns it could interfere with GPS.

    According to Reuters:

    The lawsuits alleged that Deere, Garmin International , Trimble Navigation Ltd, and a GPS industry group led LightSquared to believe the planned network would not pose an interference risk. It wasn’t until LightSquared had pumped $4 billion into the project, the plaintiffs argued, that the GPS industry voiced their concerns.

    Judge Berman dismissed many claims from both plaintiffs, including breach of contract and civil conspiracy, leaving alive only LightSquared’s claims for negligent misrepresentation and constructive fraud.

    Because the judge did not dismiss all claims, LightSquared could still be able to probe the GPS companies’ books and records during discovery.

  • NavCom Introduces StarFire Rapid Recovery

    NavCom Technology, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Deere & Company, announced the release of new software for its Sapphire-based receivers, including the SF-3050, SF-3040, and LAND-PAK. The multi-frequency GNSS (GPS+GLONASS) receivers are now capable of supporting NavCom’s new StarFire Rapid Recovery feature, which allows users to quickly regain StarFire accuracy after short GNSS signal blockages caused by shading, bridges or other similar constraints. Other new features include support for proprietary GLONASS RTK correction messages from third party base stations and a new web server interface for the SF-3050.

    “The functionality and capabilities gained from these new features allow our customers improved productivity in the field,” said Steve Ault, NavCom’s Product Manager. “Previously, users would have to wait out the traditional 45-minute pull-in delay when they lost the GNSS signal, but now, StarFire Rapid Recovery helps users ride through short GNSS signal outages of up to three minutes and regains 5cm StarFire accuracy within two minutes after entering StarFire mode. Our customers are now up and running within five minutes with StarFire Rapid Recovery, thereby increasing the maximum possible uptime.”

    NavCom’s StarFire Network, a Global Satellite Based Augmentation System, provides five centimeter horizontal accuracy worldwide and the freedom and flexibility that a DGPS solution offers, NavCom said. Starfire offers 99.999% uptime, a seven-satellite constellation, and StarFire over IP (SFoIP) delivery for redundancy to ensure system availability and position accuracy.

    StarFire Rapid Recovery and third-party GLONASS RTK are options available via a software update for all current StarFire receivers offered by NavCom’s global dealer network.

  • New Organization Advocates for GPS Industry

    A new group, the GPS Innovation Alliance, has formed and announced itself as the voice of the U.S. GPS industry and community of users, to “support the ever-increasing importance of GPS” in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C.  The organization subsumes and replaces both the U.S. GPS Industry Council, an entity of longstanding, and the Coalition to Save Our GPS, which arose in March 2011 in response to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conditional waiver granted to LightSquared.

    The alliance appears to reflect a desire on the part of some industry members to take a more aggressive approach inside the Washington Beltway, a sign, it would seem, of the political times. Some of those involved spoke informally of a desire to take advantage of contacts made on Capitol Hill and in the media during the highly visible LightSquared combat, fought in the glare of media attention heretofore unknown in industry circles.

    Members of the Alliance are drawn from a variety of fields and businesses reliant on GPS, as well as leading manufacturers of GPS equipment. The former group includes, aviation, agriculture, construction, transportation, first responders, and surveying and mapping, and consumer organizations representing users of GPS for boating and other outdoor activities, and in automobiles, smartphones, and tablets.

    Joining John Deere, Garmin, and Trimble — three lead drivers of the Coalition effort at the FCC — are NovAtel Inc. and Topcon Positioning Systems. All five were previously long-time members of the USGIC, and they appear as founding members of the alliance at www.gpsalliance.org.

    Affiliate members listed on the website include the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, National Association of Manufacturers, Association for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles International, and Boat Owners Association of the United States.

    The alliance plans to build on “the proud heritage and extensive expertise of the United States GPS Industry Council (USGIC), which was formed in 1991 to promote broader commercial applications of GPS and to expand global markets while assisting in safeguarding the technology’s military advantages. The council has a long history of highly effective advocacy on behalf of the GPS industry, as well as serving as a trusted source of objective information for policy makers, the media and the public both in the U.S. and around the world.” The alliance website gives a longer statement about the history and record of the USGIC, highlighting its role in international negotiations.

    Michael Swiek, executive director of the USGIC, has transitioned to become the executive director, executive branch and international, of the Innovation Alliance. In addition to working closely with leading offices of executive branch departments of the U.S. government, he will continue well-established dialogs with governmental, private sector and academic entities in areas critical to GPS and satellite navigation among key players in Europe, Japan, Russia, Korea, China, and elsewhere.

    Heather Hennessey, a principal of Innovative Federal Strategies LLC, a “comprehensive government relations firm,” has taken the position of executive director, legislative, at the alliance. Hennessey has seven years of service in the House of Representatives, including two years as chief of staff for Congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia.

    An active voice in alliance representations on Capitol Hill will presumably be that of Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel for Trimble. Kirkland was the most prominent spokesperson for the coalition during the LightSquared battle, which appears to be either over or nearly so. “The alliance is committed to ensuring constructive, robust dialog between GPS users, manufacturers and policy makers on critical policy issues affecting GPS,” Kirkland said, “a commitment Trimble is pleased to be a part of as the industry continues to innovate and modernize.”

    The alliance mission statement cites the importance of GPS to global economy and infrastructure; vows to aid further GPS innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship; and to protect, promote and enhance the use of GPS.

    The GPS Innovation Alliance officially launched on February 13 with a reception on Capitol Hill, a traditional lobbying tactic that previous efforts had perhaps not envisioned.  The organization has also hired a public relations firm, Prism Public Affairs, and commissioned a logo.

  • Business Outlook – RTK Crops Up in Precision Ag

    Most precision agriculture users have settled for 1-meter accuracy using GPS, made possible with the reliable and convenient corrections provided by WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System).

    GPS/GNSS is important to key areas in agriculture, including field mapping, yield mapping, and guidance. Companies such as Hemisphere GPS (formerly CSI Wireless) did very well designing single-frequency GPS receivers for the precision ag market. Hemisphere is also a leading designer of radio beacon (Coast Guard) receivers. Radio beacons, in addition to WAAS, are a free source of corrections for 1-meter accuracy.

    Trimble was also an early supplier of precision ag GPS receivers and related equipment, offering single-frequency products such as the AG-132.

    While the real-time kinematic (RTK) technique has been around since the early ’90s, it didn’t gain wide acceptance in the precision ag industry. The accuracy was great, down to approximately 2 centimeters at the time, but the equipment was clunky. The user had to set up a reference station near the field he was working on. The communication link was complicated, and some types needed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensing. Consequently, there were several potential points of failure. Lastly, the cost for a complete RTK system (base, rover, and radios) was upwards of $50,000. It just wasn’t cost-effective.

    The term RTK network is ambiguous because it means different things depending on the industry. Essentially, the hardware setup is the same no matter the industry. An RTK network is a series of dual-frequency reference stations spaced optimally within a region to provide RTK corrections to subscribers in that region. The network subscriber is assigned a primary reference station.

    RTK networks for agriculture are single-baseline solutions; the subscriber can only use one reference station at a time. There is no “network solution” or redundancy like there is in RTK networks used in the surveying and construction industries. Therefore, when a single reference station goes down, the subscribers in that area are down also.

    Another major difference between RTK networks for agriculture and RTK networks for surveying and construction is the communication method. The latter primarily use data plans on mobile phones to receive corrections. Either the mobile phone is linked via Bluetooth to the receiver or a cellular modem is built inside the receiver.

    RTK networks for agriculture, on the other hand, primarily use spread spectrum radios (900 Mhz band) to transmit corrections to the receiver. Spread spectrum radios are free to use and don’t require a license from the FCC to operate. They are limited in their broadcast range, however, typically to two to three miles. To solve this problem, radio repeaters are used to extend the distance.

     

    The Wild, Wild West

    Bill Henning, real-time specialist with the National Geodetic Survey (NGS), said it best: the recent explosion of RTK networks is like the wild, wild West. They are proliferating so quickly that it’s hard to keep track of them. One of his tasks is to help develop guidelines for RTK network operators, and I think NGS is making inroads into the survey/construction industry with its initiative. People are looking for guidance with respect to RTK network setup, as well as monitoring for the networks once they become operational.

    RTK networks for agriculture seem less structured than in other disciplines, though, and administrators rely more heavily on vendor recommendations. For example, some are based on the ITRF reference frame, while others are based on some version of NAD83. Some networks hire land surveyors to establish their reference station locations, while others do it themselves using NGS’s OPUS program or other methods. Very few, I think, realize the resources available from the NGS, such as the Cooperative CORS program.One would think that ag and survey/construction would consolidate their efforts, since an RTK network can cover the same area for both fields, and the equipment is virtually the same. But a farmer isn’t going to pay the same RTK network subscription rate that a surveyor or construction company will. A farmer is hesitant to pay $4,500 annually when he can select a service such as OmniSTAR and pay $1,500 annually. Some industry folks say that aggressive subscription pricing is the reason RTK networks in the agriculture market have expanded rapidly in the past few years.

    The differences between the networks used in agriculture and those in survey/construction are mostly software related. RTK networks for survey/construction offer a true-networked solution, where several reference stations are used to compute a correction, compared to the single-baseline solutions used in ag.

    OmniSTAR (HP/XP), John Deere (Starfire), and Novariant (AutoFarm) offer GPS-based solutions for precision ag. They are not pure-play RTK solutions like RTK networks, but they do have RTK capability. True RTK networks are capable of constantly delivering ~2-centimeter accuracy day in and day out. These companies going after the precision ag market offer primarily decimeter-level services (1 decimeter being the equivalent of 10 centimeters), and then RTK solutions when needed.

    It will be interesting to see how pure-play RTK players respond as RTK networks for agriculture continue to expand — which they most certainly will.