Fully Autonomous Tractors

Chris F

Staff Member
Media
Location
Hammerwich
I see that John Deere launched theirs at CES in the States. Is this a big revolution or just an update on RTK? I remember Kubota had something similar at Agritechnica in 2019.

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As an aside, being the photographer for this must be tricky as they just look like photos of tractors with no one in them.
 

Chris F

Staff Member
Media
Location
Hammerwich
Sorry - full Press release for more info:

JOHN DEERE REVEALS FULLY AUTONOMOUS TRACTOR AT CES® 2022​

MOLINE, IL (January 4, 2022) – During a press conference at CES 2022, John Deere revealed a fully autonomous tractor that’s ready for large-scale production. The machine combines Deere’s 8R Tractor, TruSet™-enabled chisel plow, GPS guidance system, and new advanced technologies. The autonomous tractor will be available to farmers later this year.

The autonomous tractor serves a specific purpose: feeding the world. The global population is expected to grow from about 8 billion to nearly 10 billion people by 2050, increasing the global food demand by 50%. Furthermore, farmers must feed this growing population with less available land and skilled labor, and work through the variables inherent in farming like changing weather conditions and climate, variations in soil quality, and the presence of weeds and pests. All of these factors impact a farmer’s ability to farm during the most critical times of the year.

The autonomous tractor has six pairs of stereo cameras, which enables 360-degree obstacle detection and the calculation of distance. Images captured by the cameras are passed through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds and determines if the machine continues to move or stops, depending on if an obstacle is detected. The autonomous tractor is also continuously checking its position relative to a geofence, ensuring it is operating where it is supposed to, and is accurate to within less than 1 inch.

To use the autonomous tractor, farmers only need to transport the machine to a field and configure it for autonomous operation. Using John Deere Operations Center Mobile, they can swipe from left to right to start the machine. While the machine is working, the farmer can leave the field to focus on other tasks while monitoring the machine’s status from their mobile device.

John Deere Operations Center Mobile provides access to live video, images, data, and metrics, and allows a farmer to adjust speed, depth, and more. In the event of any job-quality anomalies or machine-health issues, farmers will be notified remotely and can make adjustments to optimize the performance of the machine.

The full press conference can be viewed on John Deere’s CES microsite: www.JohnDeere.com/CES.
 

sahara

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Somerset
New Holland had an autonomous swather working in the south of the US back in the 1990's, my line manager was involved with it (a minor role I believe) and was telling us all about it . H & S concerns, laws etc of the time meant that it didn't really get going.
 

daveydiesel1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Co antrim
New Holland had an autonomous swather working in the south of the US back in the 1990's, my line manager was involved with it (a minor role I believe) and was telling us all about it . H & S concerns, laws etc of the time meant that it didn't really get going.
Was it worked of a satellite or of a thing set up in the field
 

Colliedog

Member
Location
Dorset
I think we will see the technology quicker than we think. A tractor as we know it will still have the capability of being operated by a person but will also have the ability to do certain simple tasks autonomously. Such as raking whist you operate another tractor baling. Or rolling whilst you drill etc..
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
Its over 15 years since I had uni lectures which covered autonomous tractors. We were told then that the only real challenge to driverless tractors being on the market then was not the technology, but the legal implications and liability if/when anything went wrong.

Since then, there has plenty of talk and demonstrations of driverless tractors, but the commercial developments have mostly been on user interface and refining connectivity between different systems.

The current big legal debate is right to repair. I wonder how the outcome of that would affect liability of autonomous machinery if the end users have no ownership or understanding of the "brains" controlling their machinery.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 43.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.4%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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