Robert Besser
13 Jan 2022, 07:49 GMT+10
MOLINE, Illinois: Self-steering tractors are nothing new to Minnesota farmer Doug Nimz, who, four years ago, first used a new type of John Deere tractor on his 2,000-acre corn and soybean farm that could not only steer itself, but also did not need a farmer in the vehicle to operate it.
The 44,000-pound machine was John Deere's first fully autonomous tractor, and Nimz was one of the few farmers in the world to test it, allowing John Deere's engineers to make continuous changes and improvements over the last few years.
On January 3, the rest of the world witnessed the launch of the autonomous tractor as the centerpiece of the company's CES 2022 press conference.
"It takes a while to get comfortable because, first of all, you are kind of amazed just watching it," said Nimz, who described himself as very interested, but also a little suspicious of autonomous technology before using John Deere's tractor on his farm.
The rise of automation, from car factories to Amazon Go convenience stores, has caused fears that robots will eventually take over millions of jobs. But in farm country, where workers are in short supply and younger people are moving to cities, autonomy could be the only way to ensure enough food is grown to feed the world.
Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer for Deere and Co., said the tractor is a "way to get the job done on time, every time, and do it at a high level of quality. It is 20 years in the making," as quoted by CNET.
John Deere is not the first agriculture equipment maker to develop an autonomous tractor. But as the world's second leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment, it is one of the most notable. Its signature green tractors are commonly used in farm country, and Deere even sells apparel and toy tractors.
Rather than creating a brand-new tractor, the company developed equipment that can be added to its popular 8R 410 tractors, that will allow full autonomy. Two boxes, one on the front and the other on the back, contain 12 cameras and an Nvidia GPU, enabling farmers to control their tractor with a smartphone.
John Deere's tractors have been able to steer themselves for two decades, providing someone still sits behind the wheel, thus making the move to a fully autonomous tractor less of a new feature.
John Deere will initially rent out tractors with the autonomous equipment already added, but has not determined the price for adding the autonomous equipment.
Hindman said the price would be "significant," as much as 10 percent of total equipment cost, or as high as $50,000, which could be too high for some farmers, many of whom are already irritated by John Deere's refusal to let them repair their own expensive tractors.
Although John Deere currently does not charge service fees for its GPS capabilities or other features inside its tractors, it is still deciding whether it will do so for its autonomy technology. It has also not yet determined how it will handle upgrades and other logistics. Farmers hold onto their tractors for decades, but the technology used to make tractors autonomous will become out of date more often.
"We have to come up with the right business model that allows growers to take advantage of increasing levels of technology, increasing improvements in the ability of the cameras and the computer and the perception system, without having to change the tractor out every time they want to do that," Hindman said.
Get a daily dose of Sacramento Sun news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Sacramento Sun.
More InformationWASHINGTON D.C.: Due to surging food prices, summer cookouts for the U.S. Independence Day holiday are more expensive, forcing Americans ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: In a cardboard box factory outside Baltimore, people have been walking into the office of Paul Centenari, chief ...
DELFT, Netherlands: IKEA officials said this week that the furniture retailer's warehouses in Europe are as full as they were ...
NEW YORK CITY, New York: After the first six months of 2022, the S&P 500 recorded a loss of 20.6 ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: Due to the record high trade deficit and a resurgence in COVID-19 infections that curbed spending on services, ...
TAIPEI, Taiwan: The world's fourth largest chip designer by revenue, Taiwan's MediaTek, has told Reuters that it plans to create ...
DUBAI, UAE: The Arab states have built significant amounts of solar and wind power installations, and are in line to ...
LONDON, England: A second referendum on Scottish independence is set to be held in October 2023. The Scottish government, led ...
LISBON, Portugal: Tuvalu Foreign Minister Simon Kofe walked out of the opening cermonies of this week's United Nations Ocean Conference ...
SULAWESI, Indonesia: Using just a rope, an Indonesian man, supported by fellow villagers on the island of Sulawesi, captured a ...
WATFORD, UK: Watford F.C. has cancelled a friendly match against the Qatar national team due to the Gulf country's human ...
ISTANBUL, Turkey: Turkish police detained dozens of people after local authorities banned Istanbul's annual Pride parade from going ahead this ...