Hybrid modem to advance precision agriculture

DLG, the German agricultural society, has concluded tests on the internet by satellite and steering system in conjunction with John Deere and the space company Telespazio VEGA Deutschland. The project called “Agriloc” has been running for four years and the prototypes are now entering the product development phase.

Within Agriloc, the space company Telespazio VEGA Deutschland developed a solution for the sometimes weak or lack of internet coverage in rural areas – the prerequisite for precision farming. The result is a hybrid modem, which can send and receive data via the mobile network as well as via satellite. The modem shall be permanently installed in future in agricultural vehicles; older vehicles can be upgraded.

The agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere performed research on a steering system for tractors and their tools, enabling a highly precise, automated and almost autonomous and absolute position of the actuators of the mobile machine. This allows farmers to sow, fertilise or water centimetre-perfect, saving time and production costs. The new high-precision positioning technology will also be used for boom sprayers in the future. This way, chemical plant protection can be optimised, the usage of pesticides is minimised and distances to protection zones are maintained perfectly.

This step forward in both data availability and guidance will bring better precision agricultural options to areas where it may have been difficult to get good accuracy previously.