John Deere’s new ActiveCommand Steering concept, which has been designed for future 8R Series tractors, will receive one of five prestigious DLG gold medals at Agritechnica, the world’s leading agricultural equipment trade fair being held in Hannover, Germany, from November 10 to 14.

This will be the third consecutive time since 2005 that a John Deere innovation has received the gold medal award.

ActiveCommand Steering is an entirely new tractor steering concept which follows the fly-by-wire principle, and does not require the traditional design of steering column. Instead, a gyroscope combines with sensors on the smaller steering wheel and a set of electro-hydraulic actuators, so that both the manual force and the number of steering wheel turns required when driving will automatically adjust to the tractor’s actual speed.

The tractor driver benefits from the reduced effort required during field, front loader and transport operations, as well as from a more stable ride at high road speeds (up to 50kph). Ergonomics and safety are also improved.

In addition to the gold medal, five DLG silver medals will be awarded to a number of innovative John Deere solutions for tractors, harvesting equipment and crop care solutions.

One of these is tractor-implement automation, a system which enables two-way ISOBUS data exchange between the tractor and more complex implements. During operation, the system allows the implement to take command of certain pre-assigned tractor parameters to make the driver’s life easier. For example, a round baler (such as the 864 model pictured) can tell the tractor when bale formation is nearly complete, and will then make the tractor slow down to release the bale.

Similarly, a John Deere tractor/Pottinger forage wagon combination is also being awarded a silver medal. A swath scanner mounted at the front of the tractor causes it to slow down or accelerate depending on the density of the swath, which determines the intake rate of the forage wagon’s pick-up.

The extension of iSolutions from self-propelled sprayers to 700i and 800i Series trailed sprayers will also be awarded with a silver medal. This includes the integration of a tank fill calculator, an advanced SprayerPro boom control package and an AutoDilute function to handle the appropriate dilution of residual liquid in the sprayer.

A fourth silver medal will be awarded to the EasyGuide Centre Link, a new system that facilitates hydraulic coupling of the upper link on heavy-duty three-point hitches. Instead of requiring costly triangular support frames, this new linkage system utilises heavy-duty springs that keep the upper link in the correct position. Furthermore, the upper link’s movements can be controlled from the cab with a simple wire cable.

The fifth DLG silver medal for John Deere will be awarded to the company’s newly designed Condition Monitoring System (CMS), which will be optionally available on the new 7950i self-propelled forage harvester. This system continuously monitors the bearing vibrations of key components such as compaction rollers, the drum, the kernel processor and the accelerator fan. Should these component bearings begin to change their vibration frequency due to malfunction, the driver or fleet owner is alerted via a signal in the cab or remotely via JDLink.

ENDS (October 2009)

Note:

The selection process leading to DLG gold and silver medal awards is very time consuming and follows a stringent set of rules. The jury consists of progressive farmers and experts from universities, chambers of agriculture and test institutes. Medals are only awarded to breakthrough technologies and innovations which add significant practical or economic value to a product.