Makes even the best operators even better
In mid-September, ten experienced drivers from Germany, France, Poland and Denmark gathered on a large farm in Saxony-Anhalt to pit themselves against the optimisation potential of the dialogue-based operator assistance system CEMOS for Tractors. Test engineers from the DLG Test Centre Machinery and Farm Inputs were on hand to measure the ground speed and fuel consumption of all the test variants. The way in which both the operators and CEMOS for Tractors adjusted the machine settings during the test drives was also documented.
Using mounted cultivators, the operators shallow- and deep-cultivated the strips of slightly and very loamy sand on the test plots over a three-day period. In the first part of the test, the operators – both farmers and agricultural contractors – had the chance to adjust relevant settings such as front ballast, wheel weights, tyre pressure and engine droop on the two CLAAS AXION 870 CMATIC tractors as they saw fit during the initial set-up and to continue adjusting them during the test drive – without using CEMOS for Tractors. CLAAS provided not only the tractors but also a selection of different ballast weights. They could also rapidly adjust the internal tyre pressure using the integrated CLAAS CTIC 2800 tyre pressure control system. All the drivers continued to adjust the settings until they achieved what they considered to be the optimum performance. Many participants had done their homework and researched the options for optimising the parameter settings in advance – for example in terms of consumption and torque, optimal rpm ranges and speed fields with the optimum efficiency. These drivers were true professionals, without a doubt.
Then all the test drives were repeated, but with CEMOS for Tractors activated. This time the drivers confirmed the suggestions for optimisation that they judged to be appropriate or requested alternative suggestions from CEMOS for Tractors. Here too, ballast weights were replaced, tyre pressure was adjusted and engine droop was changed as necessary. This process also continued until the optimum performance for the test plots and the prevailing conditions was reached.