Smart machines

Welcome to this new edition of the CEO Update about agricultural technology (AgTech), in particular smart farming and precision agriculture, which have a central place in TTTech’s strategy. 

It is our pleasure to introduce you to Mirza Imamovic and Emanuele Sala, Key Account Managers at TTControl. TTControl develops high-performance control systems and advanced electronics for off-highway vehicles like tractors, fire trucks, excavators, snow groomers, and much more.

By 2050, the global human population will grow to 10 billion. At the same time, resources are getting scarce: due to a mixture of factors like population growth and climate change, arable land is dwindling. Urbanization means that cities spread into the countryside and agricultural laborers, in turn, move to the cities, leaving rural areas short on labor. The UN estimates that, also by 2050, about half of the human population will be affected by water shortages.

The new research project THEIAXR aims to improve human-machine interaction in mobile machinery by enhancing user technology fit and extended reality (XR) technologies and functionalities. The project’s goal is to make the invisible visible and extend the perceivable range of the human operator without impacting their performance. The three-year project is funded with a total of six million euros from the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program.

The research project THEIAXR sets out to transform the way mobile machines interact with their human operators, improving safety, security, and user-friendliness Three use cases will investigate the application of extended reality (XR) technologies in the fields of snow grooming, logistics, and construction

The end of the year is always a time of reflection and a time of sharing. Sharing the proceeds of our success with those in need, sharing our passion, sharing our energy – and sharing our light.

Within the framework of the ECSEL-JU project Aggregate Farming in the Cloud (AFarCloud), a virtual terminal was developed that can help turn existing tractors into smart machines, capable of semi-autonomous operation. This innovation could make agriculture more sustainable and counteract skilled labor shortage in rural areas.

By 2050, the global population will have grown by 2 billion to a total of 9.7 billion, according to the United Nations. Increasing agricultural productivity and sustainable food production is critical to provide this population with food. Smart farming achieved through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can create higher precision agriculture to help meet this demand.

Testing and validation processes typically account for 20 to 30 percent of development costs.[1] The certification of TTControl's off-the-shelf electronic control units reduces these costs and enables faster time to market. The ISO 26262:2018 certification allows the use of the electronic controllers designed for rough operating conditions in road vehicle electrical and electronic (E/E) systems.

TTControl announced the global product launch of Vision 3. Our latest display generation is designed to be in the center of complex vehicle system architectures due to its extensive set of interfaces. It combines a 12″ touchscreen, highest robustness, slim design, high CPU performance with a very short boot-time. It intuitively presents comprehensive data from multiple vehicle sources such as sensors, actuators and hydraulic subsystems.

TTControl opened together with six multinational partners the computer vision and AI-focused research and applications center Covision Lab. Located in Bressanone, Italy, Covision Lab will bundle their founding partners’ and the involved universities’ R&D resources and translate latest research into applicable technology.

From the car to the fully automated harvester, the CAN bus is the predominant communication technology in the mobile sector. Today, the increasing degree of automation requires more and more bandwidth. When it comes to the automation of safety-relevant functions, requirements like functional safety, hard real-time behaviour and expanded diagnostic capabilities show the limits of existing networking solutions.

October 28, 2014