Preparing for an Autonomous Future
Agtegra harnesses Raven’s OMNiPOWER technology as driverless equipment becomes reality
By Doug Guth
PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor
Mainstream agriculture may conjure images of a farmer-piloted tractor trundling among the cornstalks as the first light of sunrise illuminates the plain. While hands-on farming remains part of the American fabric, the move to precision technology and automation continues to grow.
GPS-guided applications, automatic adjustable spray systems, and automated steering are among the new technologies the industry is learning to love. Full-service agricultural cooperative Agtegra recently embraced such bleeding-edge innovation through adoption of Raven’s OMNiPOWER system.
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The cooperative is utilizing Raven’s driverless system for its own processes, along with a portion of its 6,300 member-growers in North and South Dakota. Using the innovation, Agtegra hopes to streamline operations through a high-tech platform that transforms existing equipment – whether a spreader, sprayer or spinner – into an autonomous machine.
“We’re hoping for more automation and technology that would allow us to not replace our workforce, but offset it and specialize it, and utilize that to expand our services,” says Kaleb Bowman, director of agronomy operations at Agtegra.
In the field, OMNiPOWER is interchangeable among multiple machines and controlled via tablet by an operator. The platform can also send driverless equipment on autonomous tasks, ideally servicing more acres and giving growers the option to automate processes through connected workflow.
“You can file-share without having to pass a jump drive back and forth between drivers,” says Bowman. “And you can visualize your acres rather than having paper copies that you have to find an FSA map for. Raven has the ability to visualize those work orders and filter them based on crop and product. It makes you more efficient in the office before it gets to the applicator, so our applicators can be efficient as possible going from field to field.”
Agtegra officials are excited to harness a system allowing our operators to command, supervise and monitor equipment anywhere in the field, or even from another machine. OMNiPOWER lets operators plan path alterations to satisfy changing field conditions, with short- and long-range sensors detecting obstacles that could damage equipment.
However, enthusiasm around new technology still requires buy¬-in on the grower side, notes Agtegra director of technology services Brent Wiesenburger.
“ We need to prove to our member owners that this technology is as accurate or more accurate than what we currently offer today,” Wiesenburger says. “That’s education that we as retailers will need to consider to help make autonomy widely adopted. The more our technology team can be involved in the implementation for our needs, the more we can assist our producers to help them with their needs as well”
Wide-ranging benefits
Agtegra implemented OMNiPOWER in early November, in the time since determining exactly how the platform can be a value-add to farmers. Although driverless technology may not be of immediate importance, growers must start preparing for an at least partially autonomous future.
Bowman says, “It’s going to be about working with another machine in the field. Currently, it’s a cabless design where you have to transport (the machine) via detached trailer, get it to another field, and then click on the runs you want it to make. It’s going to have to work in tandem with another piece of application equipment in the field. It will take a knowledgeable applicator to monitor and set that up.”
Growers can skill up current employees on the cutting-edge platform, saving on labor costs, says Wiesenburger. Agtegra itself is using Raven’s Slingshot application for nearly 200 pieces of equipment that tend about 3.5 million acres annually.
Industry-wide labor shortages – combined with expanding farm operations – has left growers little choice but to consider automation, says Ben Voss, Raven’s director of sales for North America and Australia.
“Everyone believes that without some automation and autonomy, we won’t be able to grow the crops at the levels we have been,” says Voss. “We’re running out of workers, and farms need to cover more acres and introduce people into the workforce who don’t have natural farming backgrounds.”
Paul Bruns, business development manager at Raven, says some operations start with lower levels of automation – like autosteering – before investing further in the technology.
“Where autonomy is really going to start is with those mundane jobs, like pulling a land roller across a field, or tasks where there’s little thinking involved,” says Bruns. “Those mundane tasks are going to get tackled first, because there’s not highly valuable agronomic decisions that need to be made.”
Wiesenburger doesn’t expect his customer base to adopt all aspects of OMNiPOWER immediately. Growers desiring a hands-on farming experience won’t have to give up their tractor or sprayer seat, as the technology is years away from being perfected. In the early-going, clients may simply have an applicator in the field, with a piece of equipment connected to another human-operated machine.
“Our customers will adapt to this technology the same way we are adapting to it, and will slowly incorporate autonomy into their fleets as well,” Wiesenburger says. “That producer who likes working the land is still going to play a major role in the execution of farming activities for quite a few years. It’ll be a ways down the road before this farming system is 100% autonomous.”
Agtegra agronomy director Bowman admits some reluctance upon first learning about OMNiPOWER, a viewpoint that rapidly changed when understanding the innovation’s wide-ranging benefits.
“There’s less skepticism working with Raven, because they won’t put forward a product that hasn’t been thought through,” says Bowman. “We then went into the mindset of how are we going to utilize this technology? What are the benefits it will provide, not only to us as a company, but to our producer base as well?”
As autonomous agriculture continues to be fine-tuned, growers and retailers alike must make room in their operational domain for this technology, says Voss of Raven.
“I’m working here because I believe it’s going to change agriculture,” Voss says. “We’re facing an apex in the industry which we’ve never faced before. The only way that we’re going to maintain productivity is through advancements in automation.”
About the PrecisionAg Alliance
PrecisionAg® Alliance, administered by Meister Media Worldwide in cooperation with its Alliance Partners – topflight agricultural organizations committed to advancing modern crop production agriculture through wider use of technologies and data-driven solutions. At its core, the PrecisionAg Alliance’s mission is to help move the needle to more widespread use of digital technologies though the agricultural distribution and food chain.
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