FIRA USA highlights in pictures part 2

Wilbur-Ellis, marketer and distributor of agricultural products, animal nutrition and specialty chemicals showcased its new UAV in the drone pavilion. The company partnered up with American Guardian Ag to provide drone spraying to its clients with the Guardian Ag SC1 quadcopter. Main reasons: lack of availability of aerial and field operations due to labour shortages. Wilbur-Ellis is to deploy five SC1 drones in the Salinas California area next year.

Stout Industrial Technology launched their new smart rate fertilising system for their smart cultivator. The system is to fertilise individual plants using the same plant recognition cameras used for hoeing. The technology is able to tune the amount of fertiliser to the size of the plants. An 88 inches wide smart cultivator with the fertilising system on it costs $ 300,000. The 178 inches wide version costs $ 520,000. There currently are 75 smart cultivators in operation.

MQ Autonomous Agritech introduced their compact autonomous sprayer at FIRA USA. The vehicle is built by Chinese manufacturer Mu Qin and MQ Autonomous Agritech is responsible for the market introduction in the US. Nearly 500 units are currently in operation in China. The tracked vehicle is fully electric featuring either a 1.5 kWh swappable battery or a 5 kWh chargeable battery. Operating times are respectively 30 to 60 minutes and 3 to 6 hours depending on the circumstances. US prices are not known yet.

After not doing so during past two editions, Sabanto demonstrated their Steward autonomous tractor upgrade for the first time at FIRA USA. Steward is compatible with several wheeled tractor types and enables up to 10 mph fast autonomous driving without any operators present.

Aigen’s Element is a compact solar powered mechanical weeding robot. It uses RTK positioning data from planters to do its path planning. One Element can cover up to 20 acres and interestingly enough, the robot is designed to stay in the field all season. 50 units are currently operational from which 30 at three different farms. One Element costs $ 50,000 and Aigen charges an additional $ 20,000 per fleet of robots.

Australian Swarm Farm Robotics is targeting the USA with their Swarmbot autonomous platform. The company brought a client’s Swarmbot to demo at FIRA USA. This field robot is equipped for spot spraying using WEED-IT sensors. A very popular setup in Australia according to Andrew Bates from Swarm Farm Robotics.

In one of the two exhibition zones multiple exhibitors, autonomous tractors, field robots as well as component suppliers gathered. Some of the field robots on display also participated in the field demos.

FIRA USA is all about ag robotics and automation yet so much more than field robots on display and on demo. There’s round tables and experts talks such as this panel featuring New Holland. An indication that the event is being embraced by major tractor and machinery manufacturers as well.