The formation of PTx Trimble back in April as a joint venture between AGCO, with the majority share, and Trimble, started to bear fruit earlier this year, with a demonstration of OutRun, a retrofit autonomous tractor system.
Once fitted to a suitable AGCO or John Deere model, OutRun enables the combine operator equipped with a tablet to stage or position a grain chaser within the boundaries of a field.
The tractor may then be instructed to navigate up to and align itself with the combine for discharge while underway.
Once loaded, it can then be sent back to a predefined truck unload zone for transfer to the road transport part of its journey.
Increased flexibility
PTx Trimble claims that OutRun gives farmers the flexibility of deploying labour where it is needed, noting that with it, a combine operator may be able to harvest up to 50-60% faster with an autonomous grain cart instead of unloading at the headlands.
The company goes on to point out that skilled staff may be deployed for critical tasks around the farm instead of tying them to a grain cart all day.
As in all areas of digital technology, AGCO is focusing on a retrofit-first, mixed-fleet approach to tractor autonomy according to Dinen Subramaniam, product and marketing manager for PTx Trimble.
The PTx Trimble system is said to use a lot of the technology that AGCO has already developed, everything from guidance to autonomy via computer vision.
The company believes that the entire crop cycle will benefit from autonomy which will add value throughout simply because of the scarcity of labour in agriculture.
Fuel savings with OutRun
Agco has also suggested that with the hours being saved through autonomous systems such as this, tractors pulling tillage implements may be able to operate at lower engine load for higher fuel efficiency.
The company claims that during tillage testing, it achieved a 7% to 8% increase in fuel efficiency by reducing engine load from 100% to around 85%
So far, the system is still in the prototype stage with the 2024 harvest being a season of tests and development in North America.
