Background
According to Ronaldo Soares (Forestry Manager at Hexagon's Agriculture division) despite the advances of the market in recent years, planting with excavators still has a failure rate of about 30%, impairing the productivity of the farms. HxGN AgrOn Planting Assistant was specially developed to change this scenario, helping the excavator operator to plant in the planned area. Hexagon's Agriculture division — which develops digital agricultural and forestry solutions — is launching a new technology focused on improving accuracy in shovel planting.
How it works?
The new technology eliminates the manual step of marking the target positions for planting, allowing this to be done via planning software. With the help of sensors that indicate the position and orientation of the machine and the inclination of its rods, the software points out the displacement and positioning necessary for the seedlings or the opening of planting pits to be placed inside the target, following a uniform spacing. In this way, nighttime planting is also possible with more security. Another difference is that the solution is ideal for operations on sloping terrain, using dual-drive antenna technology to ensure accuracy even in downhill/uphill areas.
Planting assistant outputs
At the end of the process, the software generates maps and georeferenced data, which assists in the management of the quality of planting and the performance of the excavator operator. It is possible to check information such as the region worked, the date and time of planting, the accuracy of the positioning of the seedling, the speed of the operation, reasons for stops and so on. The software can also be connected to a command center structure that remotely and centrally manages all forest or agricultural production operations. The solution, HxGN AgrOn Control Room, identifies the tasks performed and transmits them from the equipment displays to the cloud through 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi or satellite communication channels. Thus, the centers receive data continuously and in real-time, being possible to compare the activities performed with the planning goals, track the working hours and view maps and reports. In addition to assisting in performance reviews, this solution allows notifications and alerts of irregularities, incidents or problems on machines to be issued in real time, ensuring a more agile intervention in these cases.
Connected and integrated solutions for scanning
Intuitive and compatible with any machine on the market, HxGN AgrOn Planting Assistant can be integrated with other technological solutions to increase forest efficiency. One example is HxGN AgrOn Machine Monitoring, which manages information on the machines and fleets in the field, recording from second to second the position of the equipment and the activity being performed.
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