Hexagon's Agriculture division partners with Komatsu to develop automated forestry machinery

Florianópolis, Brazil (December 20, 2019) — Hexagon's Agriculture division is partnering with Komatsu on advanced technology for forestry equipment, including a recent collaboration to create a unique, automated planter for the forestry sector. Komatsu manufactures machinery for the forestry industry, and the partnership incorporates Hexagon’s technology to create new efficiencies.

For example, the D61 Planter Komatsu is a piece of equipment that will move the forestry sector into a new era from manual to mechanised planting. Previously, all planting processes in forestry operations have been manual.

"With Hexagon’s technology, plant management is fully automated, where seedling channelling, pit opening, seedling feeding, pit closure, soil compaction and irrigation occur. In this way, we reach the speed of three plants every 12 seconds, planting more than 900 seedlings per hour," explained Sandro Soares, Engineering Manager at Komatsu Forest.

Another piece of Komatsu equipment — a crawler tractor, which prepares the soil for the planter — uses on-board technology from the HxGN AgrOn platform. "Soil preparation is crucial to the performance of the planter. For this, we use AgrOn Auto Steering, which allows us to plan the route and maximise the soil.”, says Sandro Soares.

Hexagon's General Forest Manager, Ronaldo Soares, stated that the established relationship will bring many benefits to the forestry industry. "Hexagon and Komatsu are already making great achievements for the sector by optimising planting time, and we look forward to further benefits from this alliance,” he said.

Hexagon is a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions. We are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, and quality across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, safety, and mobility applications. Our technologies are shaping urban and production ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous — ensuring a scalable, sustainable future.

Hexagon’s Agriculture division develops and delivers information technology solutions that unleash the full potential of agricultural assets, driving big gains in efficiency, productivity and sustainability. Our solutions convert data into intelligent, actionable information that enables smart planning, efficient field execution, precise machine controls and automated workflows that optimise operations.

Our aim is to accelerate innovation within the agriculture sector with solutions that challenge the status quo — what is — and point our customers towards what should be, the digital transformation of agriculture.

Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has approximately 24,500 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 5.4bn EUR.