Tecnoma has always been synonymous with the word technology within the agricultural spraying industry since its start back in 1959 when it produced the first Polyethelyn sprayer tank, and one of their latest ventures proves this
point. For the past five years together with Agrosup-Dijon a top university for research and development in France, Tecnoma launched at SIMA 2011 its intelligent localised spraying system or ILS, which is a new generation of product and is included in the precision farming principals and the ECOPHYTO 2018 plan to reduce chemical usage. Whilst this system is still in the development stages it has already been recognised by the industry and won the Silver award at this years SIMA show. This revolutionary system has been developed to reduce the costs of herbicide application.

How the system works, firstly a monochromatic camera is fitted to the front of the tractor or self propelled sprayer. The image is then analysed in Real-Time by a computer to identify the vegetation from the rest of the surroundings and then its task is to separate out the weeds from the crop. This process is done via a Gabor-filter which is specifically designed for the line detection of the sewn crop and also determines the volume of the crop. Once it has calculated the infestation map and working together with the spray controller, it opens the solenoid valve just at the right moment as the spray bar passes over the crop and sprays the affected area then closes the valve again when the area has been passed.

The Technical, Economical and Environmental advantages of this system are obvious. Herbicide will only be sprayed where it's needed on the cultivated or sown ground saving money which in today's environment is a critical part of
farming life. Minimizing the amount of chemical used is also a growing matter of concern for the environmental impact.