The intelligent combine signed by New Holland

The CNH Industrial Group has been named for a Silver Innovation Award for the Agritechnica 2017 for the first proactive regulation and automatic combine setting system, a totally new development in the sector

New Holland Agriculture has been tapped for a Silver Medal at the Agritechnica trade fair for the manufacturer’s first proactive and automatic combine setting system innovation for the CR Revolution combine. Lars Skjoldager Sørensen, in charge of the New Holland Harvesting Product Line, reported, “This innovative function solves one of the principal problems for harvester operations, that is maintaining productivity at a maximum level while reducing loss and the percentage of damaged grain. The new automatic regulation system widens the horizon of innovations because whereas the present systems are the reactive type, the New Holland system anticipates in a proactive method for variations on slopes and the density of the product, applying corrective adjustments before overloading and loss actually take place.” The proactive system is based on traditional sensors and control systems that have been supplemented by a new pressure sensor on the cleaning system that measures indirectly the load on the sieves. The amount of time the material spends inside the threshing and separation areas in the rotor housings is controlled by adjusting the angles of the guide rails. This technology has a bigger impact on the rotor speed and the efficiency of an axial-flow combine than on changing the concave gap. The operator can select from three different harvesting strategies. Using the data stored into the system, the combine will optimize its settings by itself – and before the header actually starts cutting and taking in the crop. The new pressure sensors added to the cleaning system introduces a new method for calculating load on the sieves. In fact, the New Holland system measures the difference of the sieve above to get a very precise indication of the weight on the cleaning shoe. On the basis of these data the proactive system maximizes the performance of the cleaning show while preventing loss. In case loss occurs, the system can immediately identify the cause and quickly apply the correction needed. This way the cleaning shoe capability is raised to ensure more stable work. This means the operator can increase productivity with the advantage of sharply reducing fatigue by having no need to continuously apply manual adjustments. In the field and for crop flow the anticipation system is an instrument capable of learning to foresee variations on slopes and the density of the product ahead of the combine by using field topography data on conditions in front of the header for predicting the path of the combine and extrapolate the crop flow of passes close to those already completed. To achieve these operations, past yields, field topography and all combine settings based on GPS positioning data are programmed into the combine. The new remote adjustable rotor vanes controlled from the cab provide great efficiency and reduce losses. The combine automatically modifies the angles of all the rotor vanes according to product load which has a direct impact on the time the yield remains in the rotors and thus also on the power requirement for the rotors.This means the automated system can improve energy efficiency for the rotors without affecting the combine parameters and the separation setting while improving performance and fuel consumption.