Step-by-step guide to creating a driven boundary with John Deere precision agriculture equipment. Learn the hardware and software you need, setup tips, and best practices for recording accurate field boundaries to improve machine automation and farm management.
So you want to utilize precision technology on your farm to take advantage of John Deere's suite of advanced guidance and machine automation products, you must first create a boundary around your field, pinpointing where the physical work will take place. In this two part video series, I will walk you step by step through how to create a driven boundary utilizing a Gator G5 display and a Starfire 7000 receiver to kickstart your precision technology journey with some pro tips along the way. My advice to you get comfortable with this content because boundaries are here to stay an exterior boundary is the foundation for success and precise machine control throughout the crop year, from the first tillage to the last harvest pass. The field's boundary tells the display the size, shape and location of the field. The headland area tells the display where end of row turns should happen. These two types of boundaries are used as the reference points that enable John Deere's current guidance in automation products like autopath Section Control and autotrac Turn Automation. Full Disclosure A higher quality boundary will be required for the use of fully autonomous vehicles in the future, but don't let that stop you from experiencing the power of field boundaries. A driven recorded boundary provides precise machine automation and customer recognized value. Now boundaries also enable important customer insights like estimated time remaining in the field that allows a farm manager to make operational decisions in real time to gain efficiency and productivity. There are five key hardware and software components that we both require and recommend to get started. First, a Gator or John Deere tractor is recommended to drive a boundary. However, you can use your John Deere combine as well. You will also need a G5 or Gen4 display with core automation software capabilities, a StarFire receiver with SF3 or higher correction signal. Note that the GPS accuracy must be at least 90% to begin recording a driven boundary. Pro Tip 1 We recommend recording your boundary with SF RTK correction signal for long term repeatability. Pro tip number two Use the same correction signal when creating and using the boundary. Do not mix and match correction signals continuing down the list, you will also need an operations center account and finally, a JDLink connection with an R or M modem is highly recommended but not required. A connected machine will allow data to be transferred to the operations center automatically over the air versus manually transferring with a USB drive, which we will cover later in this video. Once the machine you choose to record your boundary with is equipped with the appropriate hardware and software, we recommend adding the location module to your guidance default run page so you can use the Map Preview and easily access the Pause and resume functions as you record your boundary. Next, navigate the display menu. Select Applications, then Fields and boundaries within this screen. Choose an existing or Create a client farm and field in accordance with the new boundary that is being recorded. Next, hit the Create Boundaries Yellow plus button. The popup will allow you to choose between creating your boundary based on an existing coverage map or by driving the perimeter of the field. Today we will be demonstrating how to create a driven boundary, which is the most accurate way to control a boundary shape and can be recorded as you are performing actual fieldwork before recording a boundary. Completing a proper terrain compensation module, otherwise known as TCM calibration, is critical to successful performance. A boundary recorded with an uncalibrated TCM can cause poor performance when using AutoTrack, ATIG, ATTA and AutoPath and will require the boundary to be re recorded. Do not skip this critical step anytime you install a Starfire receiver on a machine. See the video linked in the description below for more information on how to complete this step. Once you select the Driven boundary option, rename the boundary you are about to create. Pro Tip 3 detailed naming for each client farm, field and boundary is critical to your success. Name the field boundary with relevant information to identify how and when it was created. Consider including the date the boundary was recorded, the boundary creation type from coverage or driven, and the Starfire receiver correction signal used. With this, the client farm field names must be accurate. Orgs with correctly named and well organized CFF and boundaries will see the full value of the tools at hand. Next, select the GPS offset point method and and input the boundary offset based on where the center of the receiver is located on your machine to the outermost point of the machine where you would like your boundary to lie. If this input is incorrect, the boundary will not be where you anticipated throughout the entire crop year. Carefully take your GPS offset measurements if necessary and input them into the display. In this demonstration we will input a 2.5 foot offset which again represents the distance from the center of the Starfire receiver to to the outside of the tire where we want the exterior boundary to be recorded. It is important to understand that if you run an implement that is wider than its track spacing, that extra iron needs to be accounted for in the GPS offset to ensure the implement stays within the field boundary throughout the entire operation. This is accomplished by simply calculating the distance from outermost row to the end of the implement minus half of row spacing and adding that number to the offset. Once you have input your offset, click the green Start recording button and you're ready to drive around the perimeter of your field pro tip number 4x out of the Recording and Applications window to return to the Guidance Run page that you have duplicated in a previous step. This will give you visibility to what is happening in real time and again makes your pause and resume functions readily available as you record. Pro Tip number five if you choose to record a boundary with a combine, ensure that you select the GPS Offset Point method and input half of your combine's header width in the Boundary offset field before you start recording your boundary. For the best results, we hope you have enjoyed watching this setup of how to create a driven boundary. Stay tuned for part two of this process in the next video where we show you the driving and upload of data, along with some more tips and tricks. Thanks for watching.
