Autosteer and pylons

[turbo]

When I am using auto steer I very rarely look in the front,I am busy making sure the machine behind is working correctly that's the whole point of auto steer,if you are just going to stair forward and not bother with what the machine behind is doing then you are only a steering wheel jockey

 

[Princess Pooper]

Yeh sorry must’ve missed the link. Interesting that they have somewhat different ways of retreating. Bunny hops in the West then versus run away quickly in the East.

wouldn't call Leicestershire 'west'! WPD cover enormous area

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

wouldn't call Leicestershire 'west'! WPD cover enormous area

I guess they must've named it Western Power for some illogical reason?

 

[simmy_bull]

But it's just not possible to drive as straight as the autosteer. I certianly have never known anyone that can.Especially on huge fields where you can't see from one end to the other or at night or in poor vis. Also with autosteer you can work skip passes then fill in the gaps to make for kinder turns on the headlands. The benefits are endless and clear to see.

There was only ever one man that can skip pass perfectly and I don’t think he posts much nowadays!!

But I agree 100% with what you said.

 

[Woodlander]

Not driving straight costs money.

I thought I was good at straight line driving having served my time at steering wheel attendance. If you overlap or miss by just a few inches, in notmuch time you can clock up huge areas of un moved ground.

I'm biting my toungue, I'm desperate to know how someone can hit such a huge object in the middle of a field.

I wonder what the cost the Economy?

I wonder what it has cost the insurance company? How many properties lost power and for how long? How many freezers defrosted? Will the public liability cover for the farm be enough to cover it?

 

[Doing it for the kids]

Well quite.

Been pushing the Nfu to offer more PLB but how do you value the losses?

It's akin to a motorway accident that shuts it down for several hrs, what does that cost the economy?

 

[Dead Rabbits]

I agree that it's not the auto-steer's fault. It was doing exactly as it had been asked to do. If it had suddenly veered off and hit the pylon then maybe (that used to be a worry with the old Trimble EZ steer which would do just that).

I didn't mean to say that you had rubbish kit or something like that, just that accidents happen whether one (not you) is driving a very expensive bit of kit or a hammer and nails.

Personally I find that when using GPS I am actually a lot more awake than when having to steer. I find fatigue sets in way quicker with having to steer, particularly in difficult conditions. As someone said, trying to roll stubbles that have been direct drilled in the dark is a nightmare (literally!). It does allow you to concentrate much more on the job the machine is doing. For example, I was using a Terrastar this season on GPS. You have to tweak the ram settings quite a bit to get a level finish. Because you're doing 17kph if you had to steer you wouldn't get as much chance to look behind you. As it was I could keep fiddling with the settings to make the best job. You did have to be careful though because at that speed the hedge appears very quickly! You know the hedge is there, in the same way that I guess in this case the person was quite aware of the pylon, but it only takes the machine to block momentarily and that diversion of attention to the back rather than the front can cause an accident.

Digressing to another point, someone else picked up on the tendency nowadays for people to be called operators. I don't think that this is quite the same trick pulled by employers of people who just fix vending machines calling them 'engineers' to make their job sound more important than it is. I do think that, particularly with auto-steer, the focus of the job has changed from driving to operating. If you look at this video, for example, which is actualy from Flawborough, you can see just how many things the person in the cab has got to think about.

Although using the steering wheel might not be done as much on other farms, I would argue that it takes just as much, if not more, skill to be able to do what this person is doing here. In this case their main job is not driving so much as operating, hence the reason for the name 'operator'.

Those are some Cadillac grain carting conditions.! Throw in three more combines, no auto steer, terraces, no suspension, no cameras, a field you have never been in and move the tractor to within 18 inches of the header. Then try and keep every combine going while figuring out the most efficient use of every engine hour and foot traveled. Those conditions require a skilled operator.

Also driving behind the combine putting on a header and right close to the person on foot is a no no.

 

[ajd132]

Jump out of a lexion and break you're legs in the process

 

[Alicecow]

Signal or not, the 'Scottish Power Emergency Line' takes you through a 2 minute series of automated 'choices', before you get the chance to speak to a real human:

"If calling about your meter"
" this call is being recorded for quality control purposes"
" we have no recorded updates for your area"
"in a few words, tell us your problem"
"if related to gas, call your gas supplier"
" if you have seen flashes or burning press 1"
- by which time you've probably decided to either take your chance with 33,000v running through the soil, or deal with a burning cab.

It's a disgraceful system, you'd think the HSE would take them to task.

Probably better to ring 999 straight away in that case.

 

[Y Fan Wen]

When I am using auto steer I very rarely look in the front,I am busy making sure the machine behind is working correctly that's the whole point of auto steer,if you are just going to stair forward and not bother with what the machine behind is doing then you are only a steering wheel jockey

How do you know when you reach the hedge?

 

[Doing it for the kids]

How do you know when you reach the hedge?

It beeps at you if you have headlans set up correctly

 

[7610 super q]

How do you know when you reach the hedge?

 

[Bury the Trash]

The poster of the video is apparently blaming it on the auto steer though? It is operator error, no ifs or buts, for whatever reason.

It makes no difference whether he was driving a MF35 with an 8’ ring roll on the back, or a Quadtrac with a 12m cultivator behind, he drove straight into a big pylon in the middle of a field. The size and value of the equipment is irrelevant.
Whether the operator was tired, on his phone, watching porn, or whatever, is no relevant. It’s still down to the operator, not the auto-steer system that the OP was blaming.

And yes, of course accidents happen to everyone. If I ever have a bit of a ding, obviously on my ‘dog & stick’ kit, I curse and kick my own arse for being stupid. I don’t seek to blame it on a bit of kit that allowed me to take my eye off the ball.

This^ spot on.

 

[Sussex Martin]

There is a big difference between a driver and an operator, I quote an old plant operator instructor ‘anyone can make them go along’. In other words, driving it is the easy bit, getting the most out of it takes an operator.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Perhaps there is a general misconception that Autosteer is something other than a drivers aid....and lets face it a pretty basic drivers aid at that - even fully integrated RTK just steers the tractor, ok pretty darn accurately and repeatedly, BUT it doesn’t do any other drivers functions - like um say OBSERVATION..

On the scale of what’s happening with proper software for autonomous cars it’s pretty sh!t at obstacle avoidance. You have to tell it where the obstacles are in the first place. If something or someone god forbid wanders in front of the tractor it ain’t stopping!!

Unless I’m mistaken the driver is in full control at all times. Perhaps that small fact is lost somewhere along the line.

Education perhaps until tractors are FULLY and completely autonomous. Autosteer is a drivers aid. Rely on it completely at your own peril.

 

[7610 super q]

Perhaps there is a general misconception that Autosteer is something other than a drivers aid....and lets face it a pretty basic drivers aid at that - even fully integrated RTK just steers the tractor, ok pretty darn accurately and repeatedly, BUT it doesn’t do any other drivers functions - like um say OBSERVATION..

On the scale of what’s happening with proper software for autonomous cars it’s pretty sh!t at obstacle avoidance. You have to tell it where the obstacles are in the first place. If something or someone god forbid wanders in front of the tractor it ain’t stopping!!

Unless I’m mistaken the driver is in full control at all times. Perhaps that small fact is lost somewhere along the line.

Education perhaps until tractors are FULLY and completely autonomous. Autosteer is a drivers aid. Rely on it completely at your own peril.

I can't wait for driverless cars, because the standard of driving on the roads is shocking. Tractors, on the other hand, I'm not so sure.

 

[Y Fan Wen]

View attachment 623812

That's what I was imagining.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I can't wait for driverless cars, because the standard of driving on the roads is shocking. Tractors, on the other hand, I'm not so sure.

Autosteer is frankly kindergarten for a software engineer, granted we might pay a lot of money for it (that’s another argument) but for what it costs it is frankly pathetically stupid compared to autonomous driving software which is 1,000,000 times harder to get right.

The challenge of autonomous software in cars (and trucks) is immense. As drivers we know there are so many freak and unpredictable conditions and events - this software must deal with imperfect conditions absolutely perfectly in real time going 100mph+ if it’s going to be 100% totally trusted. There has been nothing like it before in terms of software development. It’s epically difficult to do.

At moment companies like Tesla and Google are driving millions and millions of miles to train their pattern reconginition software and build up an incredibly massive set of data.

It’s going to be a massive challenge for those guys and girls to get it totally right. The stakes are massive.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Guy martin found that out.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Guy martin found that out.

This one? I missed it on the telly at the time...