CHCNAV Opens Dealership Opportunities to Precision Ag Professionals

CHC Navigation's Precision Agriculture Division, one of the world's fastest-growing geomatics companies in recent years, has made significant strides toward the democratization of automatic steering systems for farms of all sizes.

The availability of economical, high-precision automated steering boosts the adoption of precision farming technology across all-size farms. Powered by the local, network, or satellite RTK corrections, the GNSS+INS terrain compensation technology provides hands-free accuracy of ±2.5 cm over any terrain. The advanced controller ensures centimeter RTK accuracy in seconds and provides smooth autosteering and long-term repeatable accuracy. To gain flexibility and not limit the use of the equipment to a single farm vehicle, the systems were designed according to users' requests to be easily moved from one tractor to another in less than 40 minutes as the farming season changes.

A special focus has been placed on the software user interface for controlling field operations. The software supports multiple guidance patterns to accommodate common field configurations in different parts of the world, including straight AB, A+, pivots, irregular curve, and headland turn. It eliminates guidance errors and overlapping passes in the field. Aimed at both experienced and first-time users, the software also features real-time remote technical support from a local dealer's help desk.

Latest generation auto-steering systems allow all size farms access to high-performance yet affordable retrofit kits to upgrade their old or new tractors in order to optimize their work efforts, reduce input costs and fuel consumption, and achieve the main goals of sustainable agriculture, specifically:

- Increase farm income because greater accuracy means fewer trips to the field, which reduces fuel, fertilizer, and labor costs.

- Promote environmental stewardship by optimizing tractor operation in the field and reducing soil compaction, which can make it more difficult for seedlings to emerge and limit water and nutrients in the soil.

- Improve the quality of life for farm families and communities. Operator efficiency and safety are improved as auto-steer systems eliminate steering work and allow them to focus on the tractor, implements, and field.

- Increase production for human food needs. Reducing overlap improves crop yields, increases land-use rates, and prevents the crowding of plants competing for water and nutrients.