Economic Forum: Mr. Ganseforth, as a supplier of agricultural machinery, ANEDO GmbH has been recognized as an ISOBUS expert in the market for over 20 years. What technological innovations are you currently working on?

Andreas Ganseforth: Just in time for this year's Agritechnica fair in Hanover, we will be launching our new control unit platform ‘display’, which will no longer focus solely on ISOBUS control devices and thus will open up a wider range of applications. The hardware is already designed in such a way that the device can also be used as an intelligent monitor within the framework of digital video technology. In addition, there are numerous innovations in mechanical design - for example, the display has a very flat housing, which allows it to be well integrated into small cabins and leaves a correspondingly large free view area. The rear grip recess offers the user almost blind operability.

Economic Forum: What capabilities does this new solution have?

Andreas Ganseforth: The processor has hardware support for digital video applications, which promises a significant performance gain. At the same time, AI models are processed with hardware acceleration, so that even more computing power is available for the actual application. Furthermore, among the numerous interfaces, a high-speed ISOBUS connection will already be available, which the Agricultural Electronics Foundation will establish as a new standard in its capacity as a globally active normative association. Thus, our operating device platform ‘display’ is well prepared for the future in all its different sizes and variants.

Economic Forum: What concrete benefits are expected to arise for end users from this?

Andreas Ganseforth: With our new platform, we will be able to largely eliminate the limits on computing power and memory configurations that are often present with existing devices: Because with fields over 5,000 hectares or master data records with over 1,000 fields, the devices currently available on the market often reach their limits. In addition, with our new solution, we are taking bold first steps in the area of digital video – a technology that is just beginning to arrive in the agriculture sector, as the necessary cameras and other accessories are only now becoming economically viable in this field of application.

Economic Forum: What opportunities will this open up for users – and what role will artificial intelligence also play in this prospectively?

Andreas Ganseforth: Especially through the combination of digital video and AI, a variety of new functionalities will come our way in agriculture, similar to those we already know from the construction sector, where thanks to powerful digital cameras along with comprehensive image preprocessing solutions and corresponding displays, reliable person detection in hazardous areas is already possible today. Also, in fields such as preventive maintenance, AI will have an impact in many new areas of application, making a significant contribution to simplifying the job profiles of end users, which is indispensable from an economic point of view, especially in agriculture, given the omnipresent shortage of skilled workers.

Economic Forum: What other technological changes do you expect for the next decade?

Andreas Ganseforth: In addition to the field of digital video, in which the camera becomes more and more of a sensor thanks to appropriate image processing algorithms, we can also expect significant advances in automation, especially with regard to remote control possibilities. Assuming further developments in the telemetry components used, the operating device may not necessarily have to be installed in the actual agricultural machinery anymore, so users can also gain external access to the control via IoT in real time. The first systems of this kind already exist – but the technological possibilities of the underlying basic technologies are far from exhausted.

Economic Forum: What role does knowledge transfer play in the day-to-day business of ANEDO?

Andreas Ganseforth: In principle, we maintain a very partnership-based relationship with our customers – because we do not want to create dependencies with our applications, but rather explore further possibilities for progress together in an open-ended manner and then consistently implement them within our developed collaboration. Thus, we see our comprehensive training and workshop activity not as a one-way street, but rather as an important opportunity for mutual knowledge exchange. Because from the daily experiences of our B2B customers and the end users, we continuously derive important insights to be able to further develop our basic technologies in a user-oriented way.