Engineers from many farm equipment manufacturers will be making sure modern implements work with different brands of tractors. Ryan Milligan is with the Agricultural Industry Electronics Foundation (AIEF). He says, “This is an international conglomerate of equipment manufacturers that have come together to make interoperability between tractors and implements of different brands compatible.”
Milligan says the engineers, programmers, and developers from competing companies get together twice a year to test equipment and make sure the red, green, blue and other machines can work together. “We have something called ISOBUS conformance testing that allows these equipment manufacturers to take a conformance test within our equipment and make sure that they’re following the data protocols and connectivity protocols for this ISOBUS standard. This enables a lot of the precision ag functionalities.”
Milligan says the association was founded in 2008, and they immediately knew the interoperability issue had to be tackled. He says there are now more than twelve hundred pieces of machinery from large and small manufacturers that are certified ISOBUS and using the same type of connections. Milligan says manufacturers are already working on new standards and connection tools to meet the data and video demands of new, cutting-edge machinery. The next meeting of AIEF will be held in conjunction with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) meetings in Milwaukee.
EDITOR’S TAKE:
The equipment compatibility issue rears its ugly head from time-to-time over the course of history. Farmers may not always use the same brand of equipment, especially when it comes to tillage, seeding or specialty equipment, but they often have brand loyalty for tractors and combines. Even the major brands of equipment have often attempted to differentiate their products by using various size or configured hook ups. Advancements in electronic controls and software have only added complexity and legal concerns to the challenges of compatibility. It is good for the farmer/rancher that manufacturers are finding ways to overcome their differences when it relates to adapting one brand to another.
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