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PHOTO: AGXEED PHOTO: MARGRIET NIJENHUIS


FIRST PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE ▶▶▶


AgXeed robot tractor test drive: first impression


BY RENÉ KOERHUIS S


hortly after its official premiere, AgXeed invited Future Farming to see their 156 hp robot tractor at work with an electrically driven Imants


38WX spader and subsoiler. The engine, a four-cylinder water-cooled Deutz diesel, is fit- ted in the centre of the robot under the ‘bon- net’. That is basically all that is conventional about the robot that until further notice goes by the name of Agbot. It has an electrical driv- etrain with interchangeable tracks and an electric 136 hp PTO.


Sounds like… There is also a provision to power implements electrically, using the AEF Isobus high voltage guideline with orange cables that resemble hydraulic hoses. In collaboration with Imants, the spader was converted to be electrically driven. It no longer has a central gearbox and drivetrain, but a large liquid-cooled electric motor that drives the spader shaft. When you see the combination at work, you hardly hear anything until the robot tractor has passed by. Then the sound of the electric drivetrain domi- nates, which is something like a mixture of the sound made by a large electric forklift and a hydrostatic drivetrain. Want to see and hear how it roars and spades? Check out the video on www.futurefarming.com.


Plan before executing The Agbot with its GPS and sensors and, more recently, also optical recognition of crop rows, is perfectly capable of finding its own way. However, that is not how AgXeed intends it to work. You first have to choose your field, im- plement(s), preferred routing and other set- tings in their online portal, which is a crucial part of the overall concept. You use the portal to make settings, to determine headlands, an AB line and a start and finish position. It can also calculate an optimal routing for working a field as efficiently as possible. These are things


46


Just two months ago, Dutch start-up AgXeed premiered its robot tractor for Future Farming. A robot that growers have been waiting for, they say. We had the opportunity to be the first to see it at work: autonomously subsoiling and spading a field.


you usually do yourself in a field. To get started, you need to import field boundaries measured by AgXeed or by a company certi- fied by them. Then you create a job and choose the field you want to work. Now you ‘step into’ your virtual Farming Simulator-like machine shed and choose the Agbot you want to work with − in our case the Imants 38WX spader with subsoiler. Next, you determine parameters such as work- ing depth/height and, if relevant, application rates. AgXeed has fitted a small ECU to the spader with all of its parameters on it. This is necessary because the software and the robot tractor need to know the dimensions and work- ing widths of the implement, which speeds are


required, what lifting positions, traction control, etc. This is standardised within the Isobus 11783 in a so-called ‘device descriptor’. AgXeed hopes that more machine manufacturers will start us- ing this. For older tools without Isobus compati- bility you have to enter data manually. After this, you select how you want the combination to work: path along path (for ploughing for ex- ample) or along a route optimised by the soft- ware. Select the field border along which you want the robot to start, choose a start and finish position, the desired overlap between paths, the number of headland passes and let it calcu- late the routing. Then you finalise the planning by sending the entire job wirelessly via 3G or 4G to your Agbot.


The engineers have come up with this transport solution: there is an axle with two wheels and a drawbar coupled to the vehicle via two central tubes, making it a narrow trailer.


▶ FUTURE FARMING | 20 November 2020


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