The VDMA technical meeting (Arbeitskreis Technik) highlights new trends & developments for the ag machinery industry  

5G network

Many of the testbeds that are rolled out all over Germany on digital agriculture were illustrated overarching with 5G principles

An interesting presentation was provided on the most useful frequency bands for our sector in 3G, 4G/LTE and 5G, and on the principle of 5G network slicing. Basically for D-Telekom rural areas should use much more the lower bandwidths from 700 (5G) to 900 (4G) MHz. Where with 3.5 GHz the reach is only 1 km, this is upgraded to 15 and even 20 km with 900 and 700 MHz. A 2.1 GHz auction will open again and will be used by 4G and 5G besides 3G. This could be used both in rural and urban environments. 5G will increase speed, volume transfer up to 100 Mb with 700 MHz and the reliability. However the advice is to work mostly with LTE as the chip development also takes time. 5G chips will not be so useful yet and very costly.

2021-2022 are seen as the earliest date for introduction of 5G in modems for our applications.

On the issues of having different vertical sectors on the network the proposed solution is network slicing. The classical solutions are either too complex (one network) or too costly (multiple networks). The principle is to build multiple logical networks as different layers on top of one physical layer

Regarding sustainable agriculture the German climate change action plans and their place within the EU obligations were brought forward but also the situation and tendencies with fertilisers and pesticides. On latter with the stringent rules on environmental protection a just question was raised whether it is still appropriate that 30 year old sprayers are still allowed to be sold as second hand.

But also other stakeholders were given room to bring their message. Contractors did not see a contradiction between digitisation and sustainability, on the contrary, but they had some questions on digitisation itself. What exactly is it? And why is it changing so rapidly. They need more continuity in the solutions offered and their main request is solutions to obtain the knowledge in order to change and optimise their actions, not the knowledge on itself. Complicated data platforms is all fine but currently there is more need for reliable, simple and automatic digital tools that deliver economically and that provide data security.

The association of the Machinery rings was more sceptical and even slightly frustrated on digitisation currently and e.g. on the lack of options to use machine data for proof of compliance.

Further, the topic of autonomous vehicles was touched and in particular the challenges to ensure safety of such complex systems where the human driver as back up is replaced by redundancy and where controllers rather than drivers could be the origin of failure.

ISOBUS latest developments

And of course the latest developments and challenges within ISOBUS were discussed with TIM, high speed ISOBUS, RMI/access to diagnostics and their recent involvement in electrification. On high speed ISOBUS functional safety and performance levels will be assessed in the developments. Also interoperability was mentioned as a challenge. On electrification there is a increase in applications, but where high voltage is well covered and also applications well below 48 V, there is a gap in between. Therefore focus is on 48 V with DC systems between 36 and 75 V.

The chairman of the AKT meeting pointed on the importance of the work ongoing in AEF and the necessity for more resources from companies.

An expert of Fliegl, also members of the CEMA project teams, gave  a very complete comparison between Road traffic requirements  EU versus national, with focus on lighting and braking, thereby showing the large discrepancies which may lead to market distortions.

CO2 project EKOtech

And finally the CO2 project EKOtech is nearing its end. The results of this very interesting research to model the CO2 contribution of machinery within the whole process of producing grain or rice or maize are scheduled to be revealed on Monday 11 November in Hannover during a symposium.

Overall again a good barometer for the issues the agricultural machinery sector is facing and the work ahead.