Hexagon Optimizes Yields, Lowers Costs and Improves Sustainability with Precision Agriculture

"We like the fact that Digi XBee is pre-certified, enabling us to offer our solution without costly delays or redesigns, even outside the U.S. And this is a stable, long-lasting product. Our first customers deployed in 2019 and are still running strong six years later. They have had no issues with hardware or firmware."

Hugo Fagundes, Product Manager, Machine Control

Hexagon is the global leader in measurement technologies, providing the confidence that vital industries rely on to build, navigate, and innovate. From microns to Mars, Hexagon solutions ensure productivity, quality, safety, and sustainability in everything from manufacturing and construction to mining and autonomous systems. In particular, Hexagon’s Agriculture Division provides precision agriculture tools that enable advanced control over agricultural machinery, such as auto steering, controlled sprayer applications, traffic optimization, and fleet allocation.

Tapping Precision Agriculture to Boost Yields

From forest management to citrus to sugarcane, the keys to increasing yields in agricultural operations are efficiency and scalability. With many larger farms operating dozens or hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment across hundreds of square miles on a 24x7 basis, it’s a challenge to make sure the right equipment is in the right place at the right time to plant, grow, and harvest the largest possible crop yields with optimal efficiency.

That’s where Hexagon’s Agriculture Division enters the picture. Its HxGN AgrOn Control Room system offers centralized control to monitor numerous aspects of farm and forestry operations in real time. According to Hugo Fagundes, Product Manager for Machine Control in Hexagon’s Agriculture division, the products delivers three key functions:

Positioning: Using satellite devices with 1 cm horizontal accuracy, farmers can ensure their equipment travels carefully defined routes for planting, spraying, and fertilizing.
Control: Remote instrumentation steers machines and controls agriculture equipment.
Monitoring: Fleet management software shows enterprise customers the location of each piece of equipment and its tasks and times.

“Our customers include both OEM manufacturers of equipment fleets as well as large farm operations that want to integrate our solution into a heterogeneous fleet or build custom deployments,” he said. “We help with all of the major operations, including planting, irrigation, fertilizing, and harvesting. For instance, some of these farms — like our sugarcane customers — have multiple harvesting groups with five to seven harvesters and 10 to 15 tractors running 24x7 for months. Whenever you fill in a tractor, the next one needs to be ready to go to collect more crop yield. The farmers need to know ‘Where should the next vehicle go and when?’ and AgrOn can determine when it’s time to call out the next tractor and show the driver where to go.”

A Stable, Long-Lasting Connectivity Solution

With interface options including RS-232/485 or digital/analog I/O, these radios offer an RF line-of-sight range of up to 65 miles and strong interference blocking. Digi XBee® RF modems can be configured easily via the USB port using the free Digi XBee Studio application. They are pre-certified for use in multiple countries and provide secure, reliable delivery of critical data between devices with 256-bit AES encryption.

“Each piece of equipment is embedded with a 7- or 10-inch touchscreen display,” explained Gabriel Vargas Lorenzetti, electronics engineer for Hexagon’s Agriculture Division. “We use Digi XBee and DigiMesh® to enable our machinery and equipment across the field to communicate and coordinate their movements and operations. Sometimes topology is a consideration, and that’s where the mesh network helps because devices can forward messages to and from other devices.”

“We like the fact that Digi XBee is pre-certified, enabling us to offer our solution without costly delays or redesigns, even outside the U.S.,” added Fagundes. “And this is a stable, long-lasting product. Our first customers deployed in 2019 and are still running strong six years later. They have had no issues with hardware or firmware.”

Hexagon’s precision agriculture solutions also support reduction of the use of fossil fuels, with optimized tractor routing, as well as their customers’ digital transformation — resulting in efficient resource use and reduced truck rolls.

Precision Agriculture — Connected

With fast and reliable connectivity, AgrOn Control Room helps farmers centrally manage all aspects of their growing operations and make quick decisions to increase yields for any type of crop. The AgrOn Control Room continuously receives information about everything that happens across all sites from displays installed on agricultural machines, such as harvesters, tractors, and trucks.

Hexagon’s displays and sensors capture monitoring and telemetry data in real time, such as tracking the machine's path, activity start and end times, average speeds, stops and maneuvers, how much was planted or harvested, the effectiveness of a spray application, and more.

This information moves from the machine displays through the XBee RF connections (or cellular or Wi-Fi connections) to a local gateway. From there, the data goes through the cloud to the AgrOn Control Room, where performance analyses are conducted and operations are continuously compared to planned goals.

Thanks to this real-time monitoring, the AgrOn Control Room platform can issue notifications and alerts about any anomalies, incidents, or performance problems, letting farmers make quick interventions to avoid losses, operate more efficiently, and capitalize on opportunities. For instance, it can issue alerts if a machine exceeds predefined speed limits or if an engine has been idle for a long time, causing fuel waste.

According to Fagundes, the payoff for AgrOn Control Room customers is measurable and meaningful. “We’re helping farmers get more crops in the barns and silos faster by streamlining operations and cutting costs, as well as reducing fuel usage,” he said. “Harvester efficiency increases 1.5% because tractors arrive just in time. Fuel consumption decreases 4.0% through less idle time. And maintenance costs drop 3.0%. Automated steering solutions, generally, help farmers optimize paths to cut fuel by 15%, seed and fertilizer costs by 10%, and pesticides by another 10%. When you add it all up, a farmer can expect to increase their yield by as much as 15% while lowering their costs. Regardless of the crops you’re raising, that’s the game-changing impact that precision agriculture can have.”