AgTech Start-Up Looks to Snuff Out Farm Equipment Fires

Fires on farm equipment are a known risk, especially during the busy harvest season, however, a Canadian agtech start-up believes they have developed a solution to help farmers spot problems before they spark. Chariot Command, co-founded by CEO Andrew John Leaman, uses camera-based technology to monitor the mechanical health of farm equipment, with a sharp focus on combines, where fire risk is often highest. “At Chariot Command, we use cameras to understand the mechanical health of farm equipment,” Leaman explains. “We are visual people. We are a vision company, so we use cameras to see things, whether they’re cameras that we install or the cameras on a phone. We're taking that information to help farmers understand what's going on with their machinery. We're helping them understand what their machine is thinking and feeling using cameras.” The company’s hardware mounts directly onto the machine and includes both a high-end regular camera and a thermal imaging unit. Together, they monitor critical hotspots like chopper bearings, the engine bay and gearboxes. “These are ideally for combines,” says Leaman. “So we’re actually looking for heat, potential fire risk, temperature changes.”