Lemken system gets into the swing of things

Irregular spreading of plant protection agents can happen when a sprayer boom swings backwards and forwards in an uncontrolled manner — which can happen due to acceleration when starting, or when lifting and lowering the sprayer, or due to ground unevenness, or wind.

Lemken of Germany has won an Agritechnica silver medal for innovation for its SwingCut system of active cushioning against boom yawing movements, designed to achieve improved, more uniform spreading of plant protection agents.

So far booms on field sprayer equipment have generally been attached on the basic implement in pendulum form and carried with passive spring and shock absorbing elements.

Active adjustment of these elements to react to various movements during travel was not possible, for example to the horizontal movements in and against the direction of travel (yawing).

This is where Lemken steps in, with the SwingCut semi-active cushioning systems on the boom of the sprayer.

With the help of a new 3-D camera, the movements of the boom are recorded, and if they exceed the set boundary values (calibration), the system intervenes actively with damping, in a continuous response.

The uniformity of transverse and longitudinal spray distribution is considerably improved.