Smart farming: what makes an agricultural machine smart?
Smart farming means applying technology, data and automation to address the real needs of agricultural work more precisely. At EIMA 2026, ID David presents “The pulse of smart farming”, a vision that connects people, engineering and technology to improve work in the field.
A smart agricultural machine uses information while it works to make decisions and carry out actions. Sensors detect the conditions, the control system processes that information and the machine’s mechanisms respond.
For ID David, the goal is for that coordination to solve a specific need for the farmer: working close to the plant, adapting a setting or controlling the implement more easily.
Smart farming for precise work in changing conditions
In vineyards, olive groves, almond orchards and fruit orchards, working conditions are never the same, and they can vary even within a single plot. Terrain, soil condition, plant growth, planting pattern and forward speed all affect how the machine works.
At ID David, every development starts from the farming task and the difficulties the operator faces when carrying it out. The tool and its adjustment and control systems are designed as a whole, with the aim of maintaining working precision, making adjustments easier and automating the repetitive actions that call for it.
That is where smart farming adds value: when technology helps the machine adapt to real working conditions.
Detect, control and respond
At ID David, developing a new solution begins with a question:
What do we need to solve in the field?
From there, we determine which technology is needed.
The ID-WEEDER, an electro-hydraulic in-row weeder, is a good example of this coordination. Its feeler detects the plant and triggers the retraction of the arm to prevent the tool from touching the trunk. The system carries out this response without the operator having to command each retraction.
Smart-Sense adds self-adjustment to the detection system through a servomotor and a programmable electronic control unit. Its purpose is to adapt detection to working conditions and reduce manual adjustments.
The value lies in connecting detection with a specific action on the tool. One function is automated, while the operator keeps supervising, selects the appropriate settings and checks the result.
The operator’s judgement is still needed to define how the task is carried out and to select the appropriate settings.
ID David’s goal is to build a machine that is more precise, easier to control and better able to respond to the real needs of the work.
From an idea to the field
This coordination between machine and technology also requires coordination between people: those who understand the agricultural need, those who design and build the machine, and those who develop and test its control systems.
The Rambla La Vera experimental farm, in Yecla, allows ID David to test and refine equipment and prototypes in the field. Development does not end on the drawing board or in the workshop: it has to be tested against the conditions in which the machinery will actually work.
This relationship between people, engineering, technology and the field gives meaning to “The pulse of smart farming”, the concept behind ID David’s participation in EIMA International 2026.
WE MAKE THE FUTURE WORK.
The pulse of smart farming.
Because the future of smart farming is not just about adding more technology.
It is about making it real.
