Video: Grass rake control with Kverneland GeoSwath

Satellite position data is used to lift and lower the front and rear pairs of rotors in turn on GeoRake versions of the Kverneland 97150C four-rotor grass rake.

The 4-rotor grass rakes, which have stepless hydraulic working width adjustment from 9.8m to 15m (32ft to 49ft) and also hydraulic working height regulation, normally need a skilled operator to achieve maximum performance and neat swaths across the field.

But the GeoSwath and other automated features enable the operator to concentrate on steering and speed alone.

GeoSwath for Kverneland 97150C and Vicon Andex 1505

The front 2 rotors can be angled in, to fine tune the working width on-the-move, all 4 can be lifted out of work individually for larger changes in width, and the rotors can be lifted in front and rear pairs when approaching and leaving the headland.

With GeoSwath installed on the Kverneland Group’s IsoMatch Tellus Pro terminal, the Vicon Andex 1505 GeoRake can automatically pull in or lift individual rotors to alter the working width.

All these functions can be automated on the GeoRake machines, thanks to the GeoSwath software package for the Kverneland IsoMatch Tellus Pro isobus terminal, which also provides sprayer, spreader and seed drill section control.

Once the boundary of a field has been recorded or recovered from memory, raking can switch to automatic, significantly reducing the operator’s workload during headland turns by lifting and lower the rotors as necessary, to avoid dislodging headland swaths.

Regular working width is hydraulically adjustable between 9.8m and 15m (32ft and 49ft) and rotor height is also adjustable hydraulically.

Straight, well-formed swaths are produced by angling inwards either of the front rotor arms where the unraked area becomes narrower, or lifting out of work 1 or both rotors on 1 side of the machine, if necessary.

Kverneland believes that in addition to reducing the operator’s control workload, the GeoRake machines work more efficiently and achieve higher work rates.