Get FinancingMeet GUSS, The Self-Driving Orchard Sprayer
Spraying a large nut or fruit orchard requires a great deal of human labor under the existing system, which requires a driver for each spray vehicle in the field. Problems can arise when qualified workers aren’t available during the best times to spray. Human operators can also damage the crop through errors in application rate, driving speed, distracted steering, and other factors. And of course, the chemicals can be harmful to the operators themselves.
Enter GUSS, the world’s first Global Unmanned Spray System for orchards. It was invented by Dave Crinklaw of Kingsburg, California, and developed by him and his team. Crinklaw has been doing custom orchard spraying—and inventing related machines—for nearly four decades with Crinklaw Farm Services, now known as CFS.
Today, however, Crinklaw is making headlines for his autonomous spray vehicles, soon to be produced in volume under the GUSS company name. In contrast to self-driving cars, which are just starting to gain traction in highly publicized testing around the world, GUSS’s relatively low-key, three-year trials in California’s ag country have already reassured its developers that it’s ready for prime time: mass production and sales.
"GUSS’s whole design philosophy is based around innovation, efficiency, and performance—building a machine that can spray row after row, day after day,” says Gary Thompson, Marketing Director for GUSS Automation.
A Futuristic Fleet
A GUSS vehicle looks pretty sci-fi, but there’s a good reason for its long, sleek shape. As it rolls along its preprogrammed course up one orchard row and down another, its angled prow and shiny exterior gently move low-hanging branches out of the way, minimizing the chance of fruit or nuts being knocked down by its passage. Besides citrus and stone fruit, GUSS has also been engineered to spray pistachios, walnuts, and almonds thus far.
During operation, you can monitor the GUSS machines under your command to make sure they’re all doing their jobs unimpeded. CFS originally had an operator do this from a control van for its custom spraying business/GUSS testing, but now the developers have come up with a cellular connection that lets you monitor the sprayers from your pickup truck, your Polaris Ranger UTV, your office, your vacation spot/holiday destination—anywhere you have an Internet connection.
A video camera mounted on each vehicle’s hood lets you see what’s in front of the unit on your computer or mobile device. If there’s a fallen tree limb in the way, or orchard workers who haven’t cleared the area, you’ll be able to see the problem and respond accordingly.
There’s no technical limit to the number of vehicles you can monitor simultaneously, Thompson says, “but logistically, the max number that makes sense to operate in one area with one operator is around eight to 10.” The control van, with its 60-foot (18.3-meter) mast of RF (radio-frequency) antennas, can act as an onsite backup option for monitoring sprayers in areas with poor cellular service.
Guided Motion
At the end of an orchard row, a GUSS sprayer can use its four-wheel steering system to turn around with a turning radius as small as 17 feet (5.2 meters). When it runs low on pesticide or fertilizer, it automatically stops to allow refilling from a nurse truck.
A GUSS unit doesn’t rely solely on GPS to guide it along its path, as the satellite technology is subject to interference from the tall trees in some orchards. The vehicle also makes use of lasers and other sensors, along with software, to detect obstacles and stay on track. The sprayer can be kept in-bounds through geofencing, and its front bumper can shut down the engine if it bumps into an object such as a tree trunk or fencepost.
Speaking of the engine, Cummins worked with CFS to specify a 173-horsepower (129-kilowatt) edition of its QSB6.7 inline 6-cylinder diesel motor as the official GUSS power plant. The engine has Tier 4 Interim / Stage IIIB certifications and makes use of cooled EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) and an HPCR (high-pressure common rail) fuel system.
At the end of the job, the GUSS system provides information on how much spray was applied, the type of spray used, and other data for the customer’s records.
Tooling Up For Production
A year ago, at the 2018 World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, GUSS was one of the winners in the show’s Top 10 New Products Competition. Now, after three years of testing and development, the company is set to grow beyond the seven autonomous sprayers it has built thus far.
“For us, it’s going to be a very exciting year. Our new manufacturing facility in Kingsburg, California, will be completed, enabling sales of GUSS globally,” Thompson said.
The company has also built a taller, narrower prototype for use in vineyards. It plans to develop that new self-driving sprayer system in the spring of this year.
It’s not hard to imagine that autonomous farm machinery will someday play a major role in the future of agriculture, starting with the larger operations and custom service providers that can afford it. With GUSS, trailblazers such as Dave Crinklaw and company are making great progress down that evolutionary path.
You'll find a wide selection of standard orchard sprayers for sale every day on SpecialtyCropEQ.com.
Source: GUSS