Driving a tractor with precision used to be a pain in the neck for Stan Hullah.
"I cultivated for 50 years," said Hullah, who raises corn and soybeans on his farm in northern Illinois. "You sit in one position and watch that row. You get this pain right between your shoulder blades."No more. Hullah's equipment glides along with an automatic guidance system.
"Now, you can just sit in your tractor or combine and open a can of pop," he said. "You're more relaxed, and you don't end up with that ache in your back."
He has Ralph Baillie to thank.
Baillie developed sensors - called Cat Whiskers - that detect the edge of a row and alert a driver before he or she stops mowing down weeds and starts destroying crops. In 1987, Baillie added a robotic steering system.
Without Cat Whiskers, drivers must twist around to make sure they are on the right track.
In one-man operations, such as cultivating corn, the farmer rides in the tractor cab even though the robotic system does the steering.
In other kinds of farming, such as planting and harvesting, no one is in the cab, but workers on the back of the machinery have a switch to stop and start it.
Baillie, who founded Tri-R Innovations in Illinois in 1973, markets the guidance system to farmers and sells some units through equipment dealers. Some manufacturers have bought the device and installed it on equipment.
Cat Whiskers costs $725, and the system including the robotic driver goes for $3,275.
"At first the world wasn't ready for this, but now it is no laughing matter," Baillie said. "Farmers have to be more accurate and efficient to survive, and they are working more acres so they need to reduce the stress."