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yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 09:35pm 28 May 2013

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Thought the members might like to see this.

It's called AUTOSTEER.

I have had these units for 3 years now. They are a tenth of the price they were seven years ago and they work a treat. Basically I map the first pass with the tractor and implement along the fence and show the machine the line, then hit the touchscreen icon in the right hand corner and the machine drives the line for me for the rest of the field. With the modern no soil disturbance methods of cropping, it is very hard, if not impossible to see where I have already been. This takes all the guesswork and mental fatigue out of the day (and the sore neck from continually looking behind).

Data on the screen says we are doing 15.1 kph and the machine is just about to correct the position 9cm to the right. just coming to the end of this run with 16 passes and 25.65 hectares to go to finish the field.

Looking at the gauges in the background I can see the tractors ground-following radar
says the speed is 17.4 Kph. The heavy crop residue on the ground is affecting its accuracy very badly. Hooray for Global Positioning.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

powerednut

Senior Member

Joined: 09/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 221

Posted: 12:17pm 29 May 2013

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thats really cool.

norcold

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Joined: 06/02/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 670

Posted: 12:37pm 29 May 2013

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See your local publician, he`ll program in your unit, so as it`ll drop you off at the pub 6PM every Friday.

Another innovative SA farmer made the news on the ABC this morn, he sells shares in his milking cows so as people can get raw milk (real milk), it currently is a legal move but bet our Controllers shut it down quick.

We come from the land downunder.
Vic

yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 05:54pm 29 May 2013

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Hey Norcold, its not the trip TO the pub that is the problem

If they are going to be consistent with milk policy, all imports of raw milk cheeses from Europe should be banned instantly. The clown they interviewed on the countryhour last week cited risk of possible outbreaks of Tuberculosis

The game changer for this technology has been working out how to make the very poor positional data from the satellite into something usable at low cost.

The problem is that the earths gravity is not smooth and even, so the satellites don't follow a predictable path. they wobble around a lot as well as speeding up and slowing and the atomic clocks on board get out of sync due to the changes in gravity. A small wobble from 3 or 4 satellites can mean the raw data can be out by 000's of metres on the ground.

The old way of compensating for this was with remote base stations with radio beacons to transmit a calculated correction from a stationary point or base station data retransmitted from a geostationary satellite. Big Bucks!

This box has electronic circuit board mounted gyroscopes in it, similar to what is in a smart phone, the software uses the movement of the machine to correct any satellite data that is low accuracy. It is possible for the machine to carry on for a little while with not GPS signal at all.

The other thing that has really improved in the last 10 years is the algorithms in the positional prediction software, all GPS units do this to a certain extent but its pretty basic, throwing some extra processing power at it makes a huge difference.

What you are left with is a small wander of the signal that looks like a small figure eight over a 12 hour period. There is a function in the software to simply nudge the signal back on track if you see it starts to move around too much.

Interestingly there are GPS "dead zones" around the world. The satellites go through a roughly repeating cycle every month or so. Most places have a fairly uniform spread of satellites over the year. I am right under one of these spots. It's a bit like an eclipse, all the visible satellites form a tight little group in the sky for about 10 minutes, there is no triangulation and I have to steer myself

, this happens every 12 hours and 20 minutes for 4-5 days then I wont see it happen again for months.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

norcold

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Joined: 06/02/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 670

Posted: 07:38pm 29 May 2013

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You probably have read my mentioning in past posts of the raw deal our local farmers got (than tobacco) and how it almost destroyed our small town. That is the norm from all OZ govts (always raw deals to our Primary producers) , thus I enjoyed reading of the SA farmers method of selling milk to the consumer exactly how he wants it raw and real, but have a feeling the authorities will stop this. Bloody health & safety crap.

Idiots were once self eliminating now with health & safety their breeding.

I`m not going to mention the bloody level playing field crap.

Bought a new handheld GPS the other day ( first one back in 90`s for gold prospecting) incredible how technology advances not only give better results but cost less. This one locks on under a iron roof(takes longer), the first you had to be on the Nullabor away from trees and no clouds.
Using a electronic gyro device to correct sat deviation is such an advance, love it!

We come from the land downunder.
Vic

yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 08:08pm 29 May 2013

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So here is the result. No missed strips, no overlaps, slightly less obscene language while tractor driving.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

Tinker

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Joined: 07/11/2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 1904

Posted: 03:48am 30 May 2013

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So, with all these technology gizmos fitted in your tractor why do you actually have to sit in it and watch it drive itself?
Can't you also fit a camera with a wireless link to your lounge room (or pub

) and drive the machine with a joystick box & screen?

They do have remotely controlled untethered submersibles they can operate from the surface so your tractor should be an easy candidate.

Klaus

Downwind

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Joined: 09/09/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2333

Posted: 07:24am 30 May 2013

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Quote So here is the result

Bloody Hell!!!

I want to know what fertilizer you used to get the crop up and growing like that in 2 days from your post of the GPS sowing to the above photo of the crop.

Sometimes it just works

yahoo2

Guru

Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 04:54pm 31 May 2013

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Tinker said So, with all these technology gizmos fitted in your tractor why do you actually have to sit in it and watch it drive itself?

Short answer is, driving is not the actual job. The less time you spend concentrating on steering the more time you have for the important stuff.

I think there are a lot of other things that could be semi automated or controlled from a smart phone app that would make life easier and safer before we get to the robot tractor.

Farming techniques change faster than technology can keep up and the big companies actively discourage you from modifying their software and hardware to suit your particular situation. Just one cable to get one sensor box to talk a different companies controller will cost me thousands and 90% of the functions I need are locked out.

Hey Pete, I don't want to blab all my secrets over the internet, I haven't seen coke-cola or KFC posting their secret recipes.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

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