Grain tank unloading control

The integrator company has equipped more than twenty harvesters for a large agricultural enterprise with Galileosky units. The implemented solution allows to prevent unauthorized grain unloading from the combine bunker. No profit misses and detailed reports.

Project background

The end customer is one of the main crop suppliers in the region; it has a large fleet of combines and other machinery. The customer requested for a solution that would provide transparency during unloading process from a combine harvester onto a truck to prevent grain theft.

Harvesters work in the field and pick up grain in the bunkers. As soon as they’re full, a sensor is triggered and beacon on the combine’s roof turns on. It signals that the grain is full and ready for unloading. At this time, one of the trucks is on it’s way to the combine, where grain will be loaded via the auger.

While unloading, there is a possibility that someone’s unauthorized truck will pull up and take the grain to another base or to its own farm without paying anything for it. It does not matter whether the harvester driver is aware of the fraud or the truck has arrived by mistake. As soon as the truck goes away from the field, the grain is lost. The price of such an error is about 1000$, while the market price of wheat is 200$ per ton. Previously, monitoring was not performed, and drivers reported on unloaded trunks based on paper records.

Challenges

Activate the unloading auger only after identification
Fix the place, time and date of grain unloading
When loading, register the truck number and name of the driver

Solution

It would be inappropriate to build a system that identifies the driver before approaching the combine or to organize checkpoints in the field. Therefore, the system was installed right at the pre-boot stage.

Now the process looks like this: after a light signal, a truck drives up under the auger and the driver goes to the RFID reader installed on the harvester. If the driver is verified, the electromagnetic relay closes, starting the hydraulic motor, and the grain is loaded into the truck through the auger. Unloading from the bunker will not work without a card, the operator will not be able to start the auger.

In addition to blocking the unloading auger if no trusted RFID card is provided, the system records date, place and time of unloading, as well as the cargo receiver.

Equipment works in the area with poor GSM network but this is not the problem, as all calculating activities are processed in the device and there is no need to transfer data to the server instantly. Moreover, data can be stored in the internal memory of the device.

Devices

Result

20 machinery units

1000$ bunker full of grain

Thanks to the unit-based solution, the client has been using the system for the second season and controls bunkers unloading successfully. Grain theft has stopped thanks to personal access to unloading.

You can use similar solutions in your projects. The potential of Galileosky devices is huge, the main thing is to select the equipment and determine the exact stage where control is most needed.

Do you have a success story to share? Contact us, we’ll be glad to know about it. The most interesting cases will be published on our website and included into the monthly digest.