From British University
Autonomous field is a great success
The British agricultural university Harper Adams has successfully completed their project Hands Free Hectare. The spring barley was harvested on September 8, which was sown for a year with autonomous vehicles, treated and now harvested. A sequel is still uncertain, but the experiences are worth a lot.
At the beginning of this year, with a pot of €220.000 made available by the Precision Decisions company and the UK government, the university project set up. Costs had to be kept low. This was achieved by converting an existing tractor and machine.
The 1 hectare of spring barley has been sown, fertilized, sprayed and threshed without a single person ever setting foot in the field. That was strictly forbidden. Even if a drone crashed or a machine was stranded. According to Harper Adams, the trick has never been seen before.
220
thousand
Accurate Yield Maps
The participating companies and students have learned a lot from the project, which will not be followed for the time being. The university sees the fact that an Iseki compact tractor and Sampo test field combination are used as a vision for the future. “Our combine has a 2 meter header, which is not only much lighter, but it can also generate more accurate yield maps,” says project leader Jonathan Gill. "In recent years there has been a focus on working more precisely, but wide machines do not match that."
Farmer controls robot fleet
"Weather is a big issue. We also found out during our project," he explains. “We have had to adapt our spraying and harvesting schedule to the weather. This is partly why the machines have become so large. A lot of work has to be done in a short time. Our idea is for farmers to manage a fleet of small and autonomous vehicles "They can go into the field at the right time and do their job efficiently and economically. This requires a lot of new talent in the agricultural industry. We hope that our project inspires people to come up with innovations."
Working autonomously is already possible
"The project has shown that there are no technical barriers to working autonomously on land," said Martin Abell of Precision Decisions. "This was achieved with an incredibly small budget and by using machines that were already present. Only open-source technology was used for the electronics. For the GPS navigation we used an autopilot system from a drone. It took a lot of time. to get the combine ready for harvest. In the end, it did much better than the tractor earlier in the season."
Looking for a sequel
In the end, the university harvested 5 tons of the spring barley plot. The next step is to brew a Hands Free Hectare beer using the proceeds. The students have now earned it. In the pub they can then think about a sequel. They would prefer to continue the project, but with a winter grain crop. Sponsors are still being sought for 2018.
Niels van der Boom
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