NEVONEX powered by Bosch: The ecosystem for smart, digital agriculture

Stuttgart - Higher yields and optimized operating processes, less use of resources while protecting the environment: Modern IT solutions and the internet of things (loT) enable farmers to save time, increase yields and reduce costs by automating and connecting machinery and workflows. In actual practice, however, the potential of smart, digital agriculture is infrequently being exploited at the current time because the digital services now available are usually offered as stand-alone solutions. In addition, these services are often incompatible with each other and thus offer only limited benefits.

With NEVONEX Bosch is offering an open, manufacturer-independent digital ecosystem for agriculture. The various suppliers of agricultural technology, resources or services all along the entire agricultural process chain can offer useful functions and tools for connecting and automating the machinery and work processes via the technical infrastructure. Farmers benefit from this overall offer and can select an individual package of digital services. „With NEVONEX we bring together important players in agriculture with their know-how and thereby make the farmer's daily work easier and help to increase yields”, explains Andrew Allen, responsible for Commercial Vehicles and Offroad at Robert Bosch GmbH. Bosch has developed NEVONEX specifically for agricultural applications and will operate the ecosystem. Founding NEVONEX is another important building block in Bosch's corporate strategy to advance digitization in agriculture.

Seamless interaction in agriculture

The core of NEVONEX are the application softwares, which are called FEATURES in the NEVONEX ecosystem. Any of the ecosystem partners can access NEVONEX’s technical infrastructure and tools and develop a FEATURE. If a NEVONEX-enabled control unit has been installed, the FEATURES can be run directly on the corresponding agricultural machines of the ecosystem manufacturers. This is the starting point for the farmer or contractor.

The control unit can be quickly and easily retrofitted and registered by an authorized partner on existing agricultural machinery made by manufacturers in the ecosystem. The NEVONEX-enabled control unit is completely integrated into the electronic architecture, which enables active intervention in the machine functions and makes the automation of work processes and their documentation possible. In addition, access to data from existing or retrofitted compatible sensors on the agricultural machine leads to further potential for optimization. The live sensor data allows the system to take the current conditions in the field into account and thus achieve higher yields or reduced costs through the more precise distribution of, for example, seeds, fertilizers and crop protection. It is also possible to run several FEATURES on one machine at the same time. Depending on the FEATURE, information is output via terminal devices as smartphones or tablets. The direct transmission of the data to the farmer's farm management system can also be a real time-saver. Thanks to the simple, direct implementation of the FEATURES on the machine and the automatic data transfer, many of the operating steps, such as the use of flash drives, are no longer necessary. The FEATURES work both online and offline in the field. When the system is used offline, the data can be quickly and easily updated via Wi-Fi in the farmyard. Highest safety standards take into account the fact that the farmer's farm data is highly sensitive so that it is protected from unauthorized access at all times. In doing so, agricultural businesses can make their fleet equipment and vehicles “smart” and benefit from the smooth cooperation between the connected devices. Together with its partners, NEVONEX has set up a comprehensive service concept to answer all the questions that might arise. This includes the installation service and individual support for operation in the field.

“We designed NEVONEX right from the start as an open solution available to all manufacturers of agricultural machinery, sensors and control units as well as to developers of FEATURES. As a result, users benefit from a growing variety of FEATURES and compatible devices along the entire value-added chain from tilling the land to sowing, fertilizing, crop protection and harvesting. This gives our users the flexibility to choose between the individual offers, put together a tailor-made package and adapt it to their current requirements at any time,” explains Andrew Allen.

NEVONEX will first be offered in selected regions in Europe in spring 2020, followed by its market launch in North and Latin America. Currently, there are already eight active partners on board who offer high-quality FEATURES, interfaces to their agricultural machinery, compatible sensors, the NEVONEX-enabled control unit and installation services. These are: AMAZONE, LEMKEN, Pessl Instruments, RAUCH, Syngenta, Topcon, Xarvio and ZG Raiffeisen. “Participants in and users of the ecosystem can look forward to welcoming further well-known partners from the entire agricultural value-added chain in the coming months,” says Andrew Allen.

Interested visitors will find NEVONEX at Agritechnica from November 10 to 16, 2019 in Pavilion 11, Booth C10. Together with the eight active partners, NEVONEX will be presenting its offer for the first time.