EZ-Guide 500 VRATrimble has introduced a series of new products targeting the agriculture market where the company has been doing particularly well in recent years. These include an integrated display for manual or automated machine operation, a variable rate application (VRA) option for the company’s lightbar guidance system, and two new differential GPS receivers.
Trimble has introduced a series of new products targeting the agriculture market where the company has been doing particularly well in recent years. These include an integrated display for manual or automated machine operation, a variable rate application (VRA) option for the company’s lightbar guidance system, and two new differential GPS receivers.
The AgGPS FmX integrated display can operate as either a stand-alone manual guidance system or as part of an automated guidance, implement control or steering system. The FmX touch screen display is 12.1 inches, approximately 35 percent larger than the industry standard 10.4-inch screen, yet the display requires no more space in the cab than its predecessor, the AgGPS FieldManager, according to the company.
The new Trimble AgGPS 262 receiver is a low profile, combined GPS receiver and antenna, offering a choice of accuracy levels depending on operations. The Trimble AgGPS 162 receiver serves as a lower-cost, all-weather, differential GPS (DGPS) smart antenna when less demanding applications are needed.
Both receivers also feature Trimble’s OnPath filter technology to reduce drift and improve accuracy, even in the absence of satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) corrections.
The AgGPS 262 receiver, intended as a replacement to the Trimble AgGPS 252 receiver, is a dual frequency L1/L2/L-band receiver, which provides more channels and options for accuracy.
According to the company, the service options include sub-inch real time kinematic (RTK), four-inch OmniSTAR HP, six-to-eight¬–inch pass-to-pass OmniSTAR virtual base station (VBS), or six-to-eight¬–inch pass-to-pass SBAS corrections, including the U.S. Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), and Japan’s Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS). The receiver’s accuracy options can be purchased separately and upgraded as need to satisfy a variety of row crop operations.
The Trimble AgGPS 162 receiver provides DGPS information to precision agriculture equipment that accepts NMEA data. Radar speed output allows users to control their variable rate controllers without additional speed indicators.
The VRA option for Trimble’s AgGPS EZ-Guide 500 lightbar guidance system provides site-specific application control, allowing farmers to apply inputs such as fertilizer and seed only where and at the rate needed to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.
Both receivers, the FmX display, and the EZ-Guide 500 feature the Transcend technology, a proprietary Trimble positioning capability incorporating the company’s latest generation of GNSS chipsets and processors.
Third quarter 2008 revenue in the field solutions business unit, driven primarily by strong demand for agricultural products, was $64.4 million, up approximately 44 percent compared to revenue of $44.8 million in the third quarter of 2007.
