Ponsse introduces the world’s first felling assistant developed by a forest machine manufacturer.
The new OptiFellingAssist enhances harvesting quality and supports operators with intelligent, productivity boosting assistance features. The new solution enables precise and productive felling cuts, reduces equipment wear, and increases safety.
OptiFellingAssist makes the operator’s work easier and more efficient while improving the quality of the work. It supports successful felling in every situation. The result is increased safety, reduced saw bar and chain wear, a more durable boom, and increased productivity with less stress. OptiFellingAssist helps the operator in pre‑tensioning for the felling cut, which prevents the saw bar from getting pinched and enables safer tree felling.
The OptiFellingAssist solution also improves work safety and optimizes working time. The forest machine operator can focus on productive work when saw bars and chains do not need to be replaced as often. The following are specific features:
- Assistive feed tracking: OptiFellingAssist assists with the vertical movement of the harvester crane according to feeding. This is especially useful in deep snow conditions where the harvester head must be fed to the felling height through the snow cover.
- Assistive pre tensioning: The system performs the pre‑tensioning after gripping the tree to be felled, allowing the operator to proceed directly to the sawing phase. Combined with lifting during the felling cut, this ensures a complete cut-through and a high‑quality result.
- Technical requirements and availability: OptiFellingAssist works together with Ponsse Active Crane and Ponsse Opti 5G 3.3 software or newer. The feature is available as an optional add-on for new Ponsse machines. Source