Calgary (Rural Roots Canada) – 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.”

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Chariot Command has also developed a mobile-based software tool that encourages daily visual checks.

“It’s about that visual inspection, that checklist, that circle check that 99% of us forget to do every single day,” says Leaman. “Are you making sure everything’s connected? Is there a possible dent somewhere? Who was the last one using it? It’s helping bring up all that information together as a simple process.”

Leaman says the innovation is rooted in countless conversations with farmers and mechanics across the country.

“There was a lot of interviews done. I am a farm kid, so obviously I’ve seen, everyone knows someone who’s had a combine fire,” he says. “

He says that after everyone, the same questions are raised.

“What caused it? What was the issue? Where did these come from? We started looking at, was it something very specific every time? Because everyone seemed to have a different story.”

It was those conversations that identified key weak points, and also highlighted that every farm might need a slightly different setup.

“Some farmers only may want two or three of these, or they might want eight for a full-encompassing view,” says Leaman. “It’s really on how the farmer is acting. So that’s when we listen to them and try to make our technology work around them.”

As part of the SVG Ventures THRIVE accelerator program, Leaman is looking to scale the company’s reach across Canada and into North America.

“One of our big calls to action is twofold. One is we are looking for more people that are interested in doing these pilots this year for our hardware,” he says. “We are doing paid pilots where the hardware is bought, you’re still a bit of a guinea pig because we are a startup.

The company is also launching its mobile app and hopes to recruit 1,000 farmers to take part.

“You grow data. We want to help you harvest it as well,” Leaman says. “Your data is going to help us build a better system. You might have a farm where the newest machine is 20 years old. You might want to look into us because maybe we can help keep that machine running for another five years, 10 years, helping you save money.”

For more information, farmers can visit chariotcommand.com.