The Technology Corner crew is on the road this week, checking in from the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Ky. We got our first look at several new products, including Trimble’s new advanced path planning technology. Jesse Chisholm, north American sales director for Trimble, says the software-based technology will be a game changer for growers and equipment manufacturers, and represents the company’s vision for the next step toward full autonomy.

“It works on a desktop application that allows you to essentially go in and map a field out and gives you the ability to create a dynamic path plan. This will optimize the coverage of that field depending on the vehicle size you’re using. You can give it certain attributes about the field, irregular shapes or whether it’s a 12-row piece of equipment vs. an 8-row. It will build you an optimal path for farming that particular field as well as other logistical pieces such as unloading and loading during field passes. That allows a grower to then begin to optimize inputs on the field and really start to make bigger decisions about the equipment they’re going to use in the future to farm those fields.”

The technology is currently available for 3rd party OEMs, according to the company. Be on the lookout for more details in the coming days about Trimble’s new advanced path planning technology and other new products from the National Farm Machinery Show on PrecisionFarmingDealer.com.