CLAAS relies on Liebherr IoT gateways

Every day, tens of thousands of Liebherr IoT gateways ensure the efficient connection of machines worldwide. The gateways find their use primarily in mobile machinery – often operated under challenging environmental conditions in a wide range of industries.

The many years of cross-industry experience in the field of telematics also flowed into the development of IoT gateways for CLAAS machines. CLAAS uses the gateways produced by Liebherr in Lindau (Germany) in its combine harvesters, forage harvesters and tractors all over the world. The open programmability of the gateways based on Linux offers a great deal of flexibility in application. This flexibility is an important requirement for CLAAS, as the requirements placed on functionalities in the area of digital services are constantly evolving.

"As one of the world's largest agricultural machinery manufacturers, CLAAS also plays a leading role in the digital sector. In order to fully exploit the potential of our productivity-enhancing digital services, today and in the future, we need powerful hardware. Liebherr has proven to be the optimal partner for this. The group's many years of know-how in the field of telematics and the electronics expertise at the Lindau site ensure that our machines are future-proof and intelligently connected," says Frank Drexler, Head of Sales and Services at CLAAS E-Systems GmbH.

Data management and precision farming

When the first rays of the sun pierce through the morning mist and the farmer opens the barn door to release his tractor, the work has already been planned. The farmer has already collected extensive yield and potential data on the fields to be cultivated, which can be called up on the machine itself at any time. This data collection enables the targeted management of agricultural land by means of adapted fertilisation and regulation of the sowing rates.

While tilling the fields, the machine continuously collects new data and saves it in the cloud, so that the farmer can access it for future optimisation. If the tractor reports a fault during a work operation, the machine manufacturer's service department can start remote diagnosis in real time and, thus, maximise the machine's availability. Data management, precision farming and remote services are some of the numerous fields of application that CLAAS is implementing with the help of Liebherr's IoT gateways.

Cloud connection and long-term availability

The gateways from Liebherr can communicate directly with common clouds, such as Azure or Cumulocity. Likewise, the gateways can connect to customer-specific cloud solutions. This enables easy networking of machines.

The megatrend of digitalisation ensures rapid technological change and short product life cycles. Here, the long-term availability of Liebherr gateways helps customers protect their investments. In addition to the continuous technological development of the gateways, Liebherr also ensures long-term product availability, including component management.