Here’s a crazy idea. Make a spray boom height controller that works off rtk. Maybe have an antenna on each boom that works off a previously mapped elevation map. Then could set a look ahead so the machine could predict the height of the boom. Might be a recipe for trouble
4 Likes
I like it!
There was an Australian on the Telegram group with this idea. Last I saw he was seeding this spring and had multiple (4?) F9Ps across his seeder to map the ground contours.
Its a very interesting project for sure. How do the commercial systems work? Do they just use ultra sonic distance sensors? I wouldn’t think they would use GPS.
They use ultrasonic sensors to calculate the height of the spray boom to the height of the crop.
But even those I’m told don’t work well over terraces. The boom controller needs to know what’s coming, not what’s there.
1 Like
I think they are pointed down/forward at an angle to look ahead a little but the ones I’ve seen always appear delayed.
Ya ours are ultrasonic and pointed mostly down. They work pretty good but no system like that will be able to keep up with more sudden terrain changes.
A negative to having rtk boom control is that it would only work in previously mapped fields. If you wanted to do spray for a neighbor, for instance, it wouldn’t work at all. Might have to make it work together with ultrasonic.
1 Like