In what could be described as the biggest partnership to date, Krone and Lemken have joined forces and are entering the tractor market together by building an autonomous tractor.
Known as Combined Powers, the project is the concept based on an autonomous process unit. The project is understood to form part of the forage harvesting and tillage systems of the two companies. According to Krone and Lemken, the study was already successfully tested last year in areas of cultivating, ploughing and sowing.
When designing the project, the focus was on the best possible work result in all areas of application and this led to the attachment also controlling the drive unit. The concept study has a diesel-electric drive with a total output of 230hp. This has done away with a mechanical gear box and led to power being transmitted electrically to the travel drive and PTO shaft. Product specialists say that “the attachment and the drive unit act as a smart homogenous system. The communication and interaction between the attachment and drive unit is based on many years of experience at Krone and Lemken in the field of ISOBUS and Tractor Implementation Management (TIM).”
However, there is a catch – the tractors and implements are designed to work as one unit which means that the whole system has to be purchased rather than just a tractor part alone.
LSL News.