Notre Dame and Headsight Harvesting Solutions Collaborate on Smart Farming

At the University of Notre Dame, we have the opportunity to collaborate on projects with the military, industry leaders, government, and other academic institutions. But some of the most rewarding projects are those with companies in our backyard. Recently, Luis Morales, Notre Dame alum and Software Engineer at Headsight Harvesting Solutions (AGCO), based in Bremen, IN, needed technical expertise and additional equipment to solve a design challenge. 

Luis contacted Electrical Engineering Professor Jonathan Chisum, an expert in microwave and millimeter-wave communications and sensing. Chisum’s technical knowledge and lab facilities were just what Headsight needed to overcome their current dilemma. “The opportunity to take advantage of world-class facilities at Notre Dame, right next door, enables us to do what would have taken us longer to do on our own,” said Chris Evans, Director of Engineering at Headsight. Since 1998, Headsight has built a global reputation for designing and developing precision Ag sensing technologies for row guidance and header height control. Headsight’s products optimize harvest yield, travel speed, and grain loss while automating the operator’s most demanding harvest tasks, such as driving. 

By collaborating with Professor Chisum’s lab, Luis was able to diagnose and improve their next-generation ultra-wide-radar sensor’s performance for increased reliability and lifetime of their header height controller. With a Notre Dame Ph.D. in Nuclear Astrophysics in 2021, Morales was delighted to spend time in the Notre Dame lab, an environment he knows well. For two months, Luis became a de-facto group member working alongside Chisum’s undergraduate and graduate students to tackle the challenge head-on. This partnership provides Professor Chisum’s students with real-world problems and experience, while Headsight benefits from state-of-the-art facilities and subject matter expertise. Says Luis, “It just made sense to reach out to Notre Dame…I am just glad I got to learn so much from such a great educator. I spent a lot of time in the lab making measurements and learning from Jon, and his students–the best part about collaborating with Jon and his group was how deep into a radar topic we could go.” 

Smart farming, the practice of employing advanced technology, like Headsight’s header height control radar sensor, is key to the future of sustainable agriculture. And yet, new technology is slow to be adopted in the field, leaving much academic research in the lab. “In this case, the problem came from the field to the lab…a rare opportunity to work on a real problem with an immediate impact,” says Professor Chisum. “We are very grateful for the opportunity to partner with Headsight Harvesting Solutions to learn the problem space from an innovator in Smart Ag, guiding us to meaningful problems.” Professor Chisum and Headsight hope to use this collaboration to train and inspire new engineers with meaningful problems to solve some of the most pressing problems in the future of smart farming.