Smart Farming

Smart farming – or digitalized agriculture – is an important response to the question of how to efficiently and sustainably ensure a sufficient food supply for the world’s growing population. In turn, we have answers to the questions that the agricultural industry is posing regarding smart farming. Thanks to our intelligent products and systems that increase not only the transparency of processes but also, and above all, the efficiency of machinery and sustainable management of soil, we are actively helping to shape smart farming.

Promoting high-efficiency agriculture

Price pressure and ever more stringent requirements regarding environmental protection and the quality of foodstuffs are the most important sociopolitical challenges for the global agricultural industry. The world’s population currently numbers around 7.6 billion, and the United Nations (UN) forecasts this figure to rise to as much as 9.8 billion by 2050. To ensure that everyone can receive the food they need, modern, efficient agriculture is essential. We are rising to these global and local challenges by deploying our cross-sectoral expertise as a development partner for both the global industry and the individual farmers on the ground.

Thorsten Schwefe is the key account manager responsible for drive belts in the agricultural sector at Continental “Thanks to our intelligent belt, we are breaking new ground in the industry. Data-based information on the condition of drive belts always used to be rare in the agricultural sector.”

Vehicle surroundings monitoring with camera, radar and lidar

Thanks to a range of intelligent future technologies, we are providing some important ideas for smart farming. These include concepts for robots that could work autonomously in the field and, using different attachments, monitor crop growth, pull up weeds and distribute seeds and fertilizer when and where they are needed. These tasks would require the use of camera-based, multispectral or thermographic sensors.

High-precision vehicle surroundings monitoring with camera, radar and lidar is another essential requirement for enabling the automated operation of agricultural machinery in the future. Thanks to our wide range of products for cars, commercial vehicles and other vehicles, we already possess extensive experience with the kinds of sensors needed for vehicle surroundings monitoring. One solution that already reveals the exciting potential of smart agricultural machinery in the future is the intelligent ProViu 360 surround view system, which provides the driver with a 360-degree bird’s eye view of their machine.

Our solutions for the trend toward full automation

In addition to assistance systems like these, we are also addressing trends in the area of agricultural machinery. Sensor technology, for example, will enable the continuous monitoring of drive belts in combine harvesters, ensuring that impending malfunctions are detected before they actually occur. This will help to avoid unscheduled and costly machine downtime during harvest season, in turn saving time, material and money. This technology also allows service partners and manufacturers to improve their response time, availability and service quality. For example, we are currently testing our digital belt concept in partnership with the agricultural machinery manufacturer CLAAS.

We also recently expanded our capacity for the agricultural business. At our Hanover location, we have invested in new facilities for manufacturing drive components in agricultural applications. These facilities will also be used for the production of the new, intelligent belt design.

Presentation at Agritechnica

You can experience our highlights for the agricultural industry live at Agritechnica in Hanover at Stand C22 in Hall 4 from November 10 to 16, 2019. We look forward to seeing you there!

You can find everything you need to know about our appearance at the trade fair here.