Developing high-tech irrigation for remote Brazilian agriculture

Bauer’s Brazilian branch relies on Designcenter Solid Edge to verify structural designs before production begins.

Brazil has abundant land and water resources, but opportunities to expand agricultural production are becoming more limited. “One day, the space for growing more crops will be gone. The amount of land is limited,” says Lucas Oboli, engineering general manager at Bauer in Brazil. “The only way for you to produce more within the same land is to improve your productivity. And the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to do that nowadays is irrigation.”

This challenge is one of the reasons Bauer established a presence in Brazil. Headquartered in Voitsberg, Austria, the 95-year-old manufacturer supplies irrigation and slurry equipment to customers in more than 100 countries. Its systems irrigate approximately 2.5 million hectares worldwide. The Brazilian branch is the only location outside Austria with its own irrigation engineering department, which Oboli leads.

Engineering solutions for individual farms

Bauer’s international portfolio includes a range of standard irrigation products. Brazilian agricultural businesses use many of these components, but meeting increasingly specific efficiency requirements often calls for customized engineering.

“Most of our products for irrigation here are engineered,” Oboli explains. “For example, even though we have a specific portfolio for center pivots, those center pivots are still designed for each irrigation project, for each customer.”

The product engineering team defines the components, while application engineers determine how to combine them for individual fields. They also coordinate with Bauer’s dealer network to bring each system into operation. Although hose reel machines such as the Rainstar series remain standard products, center pivots in Brazil and throughout Latin America are configured for specific projects.

A center pivot is more than a piece of equipment. Each installation is effectively a construction project, with the system planned around the customer’s location, crops, field conditions, and pumping capacity. The proposal must also demonstrate the project’s return on investment, rather than focusing on the purchase price alone.

Some machines extend up to 800 meters and are transported in disassembled sections. Dealers assemble and commission the equipment on-site, where they also establish the necessary connections. If a farm lacks the required infrastructure, including channels, reservoirs, or pumping facilities, Bauer can take responsibility for that part of the project as well.

“We don’t want to sell just the products. We want to build the project,” Oboli says. “It’s really turnkey.”

Financing remains one of the biggest obstacles to putting these solutions into practice. Agricultural credit in Brazil has become more difficult to obtain over the past several years. For Oboli, the challenge is “being able to supply the technology they would like to use at the price they are able to pay.”

The equipment itself is relatively straightforward, he explains. The real challenge is improving it without compromising quality. “They are really simple machines. But how do you improve it, while keeping the same quality level?”

Designing for the weight of water

Large irrigation systems face considerable mechanical demands, particularly once they are filled with water. At Bauer, mechanical engineers use Designcenter Solid Edge to develop their designs and carry out structural simulations. The team applies these methods to both new equipment and modifications to existing designs, with the additional weight of water representing a key consideration.

“Once you put water on those machines, its weight goes up by 30 percent in each span,” Oboli says.

This added weight puts pressure on a structure that must continue moving across agricultural land. Center-pivot spans are supported by drive towers that travel through the field, placing significant stress on joints, connections, chassis components, and drive mechanisms. These elements are critical to the system’s operation and must withstand the mechanical loads encountered during use.

Keeping the machine aligned introduces another layer of complexity. Rather than moving as one rigid structure, a center pivot advances one tower at a time. Alignment units measure the angle of misalignment at each joint and control the individual towers to maintain the correct position of the spans.

Bauer has developed an alignment control arrangement in which a lever is mounted directly above the swivel point of the flexible joint. This helps prevent torsion in the pipe from affecting the measurement. Engineers design and evaluate the arrangement in the software, including its performance on uneven terrain.

“It’s not always plain,” Oboli says. “There is a lot of irregular terrain, so the machine gets all torqued on itself.”

Constructing a physical prototype of a machine that can reach 800 meters in length would be expensive. Simulation allows engineers to evaluate the design and identify potential problems before moving to physical testing.

“My department is responsible for checking everything that is safety-related, and the available software and systems to make it possible for the guys to work in the field,” says Leandro Certorio, who manages IT at Bauer in Brazil. “We prepare everything in Designcenter Solid Edge, create the different kinds of spans of the pivot, and test and simulate. And after this, when everything goes okay, then we go to testing in the field.”

Connecting engineering disciplines

Bauer has used Siemens software for more than five years. The relationship began at the company’s Austrian headquarters before extending to its Brazilian operation. Teams across both locations use a combination of cloud-based and local licenses.

For Oboli, one of the main reasons to continue using Designcenter Solid Edge is its ability to support collaboration between different engineering disciplines.

“Today, I’d say it’s more of the capabilities of integration within our other systems. We do have a whole set of engineers here from different disciplines. Siemens software is able to communicate with the other teams, as well. It’s not hard to integrate the firmware within the hardware, within the electrical systems, within the mechanical machines. Those integrations today are a game-changer for us.”

Oboli is also straightforward about how Bauer uses the software. “We really use the simple tools,” he says.

The important factor is that the software supports mechanical, electrical, and firmware engineers working on the same products. The different teams need to exchange information without introducing unnecessary complexity or losing information when transferring geometry between systems.

Looking beyond mechanical design

Bauer has expanded its market share in Brazil, but Oboli sees opportunities to differentiate the company beyond the quality of its mechanical products.

“Anyone is able to achieve good steel work, and design good pivots,” he says. “The difference is that we can holistically integrate different technologies into the same portfolio.”

Bauer’s move toward greater technological integration began with automation, reducing the need for farmers to travel between individual pivots to carry out field operations. Another important step was making remote monitoring and control possible in areas with limited connectivity, a common challenge across rural Brazil. The company’s mobile and web platforms allow users to monitor and control their irrigation systems remotely.

The next step involves making better use of the operational data these systems generate. Predictive maintenance, variable-rate irrigation, and applying water where it is needed are among the approaches Bauer is pursuing. Today, more than 60 percent of the items on the company’s product roadmap involve new technologies and features rather than new mechanical designs.

For Oboli, engineering is also about the people and the challenges involved. Asked what motivates him, he points to leading his team and having the freedom to make decisions.

“The day that we don’t have any challenges in engineering here, I think, will mark the day I will be less motivated.”

He also reflects on where he believes engineering can make a meaningful difference. “I don’t think I would work for a game development company. Not that I don’t see the value in that, but there are so many more urgent matters in the world where we could be of more help.”

Developing irrigation technology for remote agricultural regions of Brazil is one way Bauer is working to address those needs.