Vermeer has completed a 24-hour field test of its autonomous Bale Hawk, which collected 257 round bales, Future Farming reports. The goal was 300, but the field ran out of bales. That is an average of about 10.7 bales an hour, and the point, Future Farming notes, is that a modest hourly rate can be made up by working long hours without a driver.
The tracked machine uses onboard sensors to find bales and navigate the field. Instead of piercing a bale with a spear, it lifts each one with loading tracks, which Vermeer says helps keep bale shape and density. After collecting three bales it drives itself to an unloading area, where the operator sets the location, direction and length of the row.
Vermeer has tested Bale Hawk for several years in Iowa and nearby US states with different crops and bale sizes, five years after the concept was first shown. The company wants an operator to be able to supervise it remotely while working elsewhere on the farm.
The benefit is less about speed than about taking a tractor and driver off a repetitive job in forage production. Actual capacity will depend on bale density, field size, distance to the unloading point, layout and obstacles. Vermeer still describes Bale Hawk as a concept, has announced no commercial launch and says it is not for sale.
Photo: Quinn Dombrowski / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Future Farming
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