The emergence of fully autonomous farming equipment offers a twist to the century-old contest between man and machine. Agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere is just one of a host of farm equipment makers and agtech startups bringing robotics to traditional machinery in order to boost farm productivity in the face of rising food demand and dwindling human labor capacity and has announced its first fully-autonomous tractor kit is ready for production.
Its GPS-guided vehicle boasts six pairs of stereo cameras, allowing for 360-degree obstacle detection and navigation. Images are processed using artificial intelligence to determine if the tractor should continue moving or halt in the presence of a potential obstacle. Geofencing technology keeps the machine working in a defined area set by the farmer, who can configure it using the John Deere Operations Center mobile app.
Some tractors already operate autonomously but only in limited situations—following a route defined by GPS, for example, without the ability to navigate around obstacles. Others feature limited autonomy that still requires a farmer to sit behind the wheel.
Self-driving tractors could help save farmers money and automate work that is threatened by an ongoing agricultural labor shortage. But automating more of farming, and adding AI, may also stir debate around replacing workers as well as ownership and use of the data it generates.
Deere did not say how much the new tractor will cost; its most expensive current models can run up to $800,000 and the company is exploring several possible models, including a subscription plan. Autonomy has been creeping into tractors and other farm equipment for decades, with recent advances building upon progress made in robotics and self-driving cars.
Deere has been incorporating more AI and autonomy into its products over the past decade. In August, the company said it paid $250 million to acquire Bear Flag Robotics, a startup that retrofits tractors to make them more autonomous. In 2017, it paid $305 million to buy Blue River Technology, which makes robots capable of identifying and eliminating unwanted plants using a high-precision blast of herbicide.
The new 8R tractor perhaps signals a bigger shift in Deere’s ambitions. It not only turns the company’s most iconic product into a capable robot; it also provides a virtuous cycle for training new AI algorithms and developing new products.
