TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

Case IH and Raven unveil autonomous spreader

The Trident 5550 is an autonomous spreader which will be available in the US next year.

Staff writer

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Unveiled at the Farm Progress Show 2022 last month in Iowa, United States, the Trident 5550 was built to help solve labour challenges and increase on farm efficiency.

"This is a significant milestone in our accelerated product development efforts between Case IH and Raven, highlighting our intense collaboration and robust product innovation following CNH Industrial's acquisition of Raven in late 2021," said Scott Harris, Case IH global brand president.

The applicator, with Raven Autonomy, allows for one or more driverless machines in the field without an operator present in the cab.

The technology behind the applicator is powered by guidance and steering, propulsion control, ‘perception', and path planning software developed by Raven.

"The core of today's ag tech is rooted in Raven's customer-centric approach: simplifying farming processes to gain tremendous efficiencies," said Eric Shuman, Raven general manager.

From a mobile device, operators can plan and complete an entire field operation based on mapped field boundaries.

The Raven Autonomy perception system, through a series of advanced cameras and radar system, constantly senses a 360-degree environment around the machine for obstacles and motion initiation while operating.

With artificial intelligence, Raven's perception controller processes the continuous stream of images, which interprets and detects obstacles.

The remote operator can view the cameras through the mobile device at any time. If an obstacle is detected, the machine will safely come to a stop and an alert will pop up on the mobile device.

From there, the operator can evaluate the situation and determine the next course of action.

A variety of machine tasks and functions can be viewed remotely through the mobile device, including but not limited to fuel level, Diesel Exhaust Fluid level, speed, rpm, , bin-level status, Universal Terminal information and diagnostic trouble codes.

The Case IH Trident 5550 applicator with Raven Autonomy will be operating in the North American market with limited availability in 2023.

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