Raven Gifts Olds College a Brand New OMNiPOWER 3200 Platform
Thanks to a brand new Raven OMNiPOWER™ 3200 platform — a gift-in-kind from Raven — Olds College of Agriculture & Technology will be pushing the boundaries of autonomy applied to agricultural operations even further during the 2023 growing season.
On Monday, April 3, the Raven team arrived on Olds College campus to deliver the brand new OMNiPOWER 3200 model — featuring a sleek and onyx new appearance. Raven connected with Olds College Centre for Innovation (OCCI) earlier in the year with its generous offer to exchange the College’s 2019 OMNiPOWER platform for the 2022 upgraded model — completely free of charge.
“We’re thankful for our partnership with Raven and pleased they see the value of the College’s applied research activities with autonomous farm equipment,” says Dr. Joy Agnew, Associate Vice President, Applied Research, Olds College. “Our researchers have been collecting an extensive amount of data and showcasing efficiencies they are developing with OMNiPOWER — resulting in successful use cases of autonomy applied to broadacre crop production. As well, we have the ability at the College to integrate OMNiPOWER and our learnings into the classrooms — a tremendous addition to our ag tech programming.”
Raven values the full-scale usage of OMNiPOWER on the Olds College Smart Farm, and the hands-on learning students receive by operating, studying and using data from OMNiPOWER on the Smart Farm and in the classroom. The precision agriculture programs at the College, and the inclusion of OMNiPOWER and autonomy in student learnings, is getting students ready to work in the ag tech industry.
“As autonomy in agriculture continues to evolve, we believe the OMNiPOWER 3200 will encourage the next generation of agricultural professionals to push the limits of autonomy,” says Ben Voss, Director of Sales for Raven North America and Australia. “Through education and partnerships — such as our collaboration with Olds College — students and communities are getting hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology. This, in turn, will help the next generation of autonomous solutions serve the world even more. It’s imperative that students have tomorrow’s farming tools at their disposal — such as autonomous farming equipment.”
Roy Maki, Research Project Manager, Smart Ag, is leading Olds College’s autonomous agriculture equipment initiative for broadacre crop production. His research team has maintained a close partnership with Raven since purchasing the original OMNiPOWER in 2020. The College regularly communicates with Raven about operations, and shares data and knowledge gathered from using OMNiPOWER for three growing seasons on the Smart Farm and partner sites.
“As we gather more and more data throughout our research, we gain more insights into the performance of autonomous equipment on the farm,” says Maki. “Raven sees the value of the research we’re doing, and how we use OMNiPOWER to perform significant seeding, spraying and spreading duties on the Smart Farm. We’re able to run the equipment more efficiently, get more acreage coverage, and improve field efficiencies and uninterrupted hands-off operation. Working with OMNiPOWER over the past few years shows us that autonomous technology is available and mature enough for broad acre farming.”
“At Raven, we’re focused on understanding the logistical challenges, adoption rate and overall utilization scenarios of autonomous vehicles in a farm’s operation,” says Voss. “Our collaboration with Olds College provides a foundational understanding of autonomous ag equipment which is key for adoption of this technology. The success of applied research activities and findings at OCCI has provided valuable insight into implementing autonomous equipment into farming operations.”
If upgrading the College’s platform to an OMNiPOWER 3200 wasn’t generous enough, Raven is also lending the College a 2020 OMNiPOWER with a Seedmaster 30-foot air seeder implement for the upcoming seeding season. This will give the research team an opportunity to operate both the OMNiPOWER 3200 and the 2020 OMNiPOWER at the same time in the same field on the Smart Farm — allowing the College opportunities to utilize other Raven technologies like job sync through the Slingshot platform. The learnings and data collection from this opportunity is game-changing for autonomous operations.
Maki’s team is also planning to get an increased amount of acreage coverage during the 2023 growing season, expand the data collection to further improve efficiencies with autonomous equipment, and map cellular connectivity in real time.
“Being able to expand our data collection and compare different models of OMNiPOWER operating on the exact same field on the Smart Farm is incredible,” says Maki. “We’ll be able to explore the efficiencies of additional power in the OMNiPOWER 3200 compared to the 2019 and 2020 models for field capacity, and how that affects fuel economy.”
After delivering the OMNiPOWER 3200, a Field System Specialist at Raven stayed on campus for a few days to help get OMNiPOWER 3200 tuned and calibrated for the Smart Farm fields and the upcoming 2023 growing season. All the implements the College owns — Seedmaster 30-foot air seeder, Pattison 120-foot sprayer and New Leader 90-foot fertilizer spreader — fit the new OMNiPOWER 3200 platform.
People can expect to see exciting updates from the Smart Farm during the 2023 growing season as Olds College and Raven continue to advance innovation in agriculture together. Visit oldscollege.ca/smartfarm for the latest updates.