open:panel by Anedo – Touchscreen operation without eye contact

At the Agritechnica, Anedo Ltd., based in Eydelstedt near Osnabrück, Germany, presents a completely new generation of its ISOBUS operator terminal called open:panel. Their touch screens are the first that allow operators to feel important control elements with their fingers without looking and to freely configure them using software, although they are covered by the glass front shield.

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Until now, the control elements of a universal terminal with glass front cover can be operated reliably only if the driver can look at them. On the operator terminals of Anedo‘s new open:panel series presented for the first time at the trade fair, you can feel the control elements with your fingers without a problem and use multi-finger touch, wiping gestures and easy-to-use sliders like on tablet computers to operate them. This „blind control“ with haptic feedback is enabled by depressions milled into the terminal‘s hardened glass front cover with is about 3 mm thick. Located both within and outside the central visible screen area, they can be freely programmed and highlighted by colour depending on status.

The new open:panel terminals combine several technologies:

• The kind of operation known from tablets using one or several fingers and no mechanical moving, and hence wearing, buttons, levers or membrane keyboards.

• The sensing of fixed elements on the user interface by means of ergonomically designed haptics.

• The multiscreen capability, i.e. integration of external displays, iPads or headup displays (HUD) using the open:panel X-App.

With the help of the integrated open:panel software development kit (SDK), the already large inventory of existing functions can easily be extended by adding apps individually. Moreover, external apps on iPads and smartphones are given easy access via the terminal to all relevant machine data and data of the internal apps. Using appropriate apps, novel control concepts and assistance systems with camera support can easily be integrated thanks to the digital video system. The numerous interfaces allow for almost any kind of communication.

Following the CCI terminals developed and manufactured by Anedo, the open:panel ISOBUS operator terminals are another move towards more efficiency in agriculture.