Farm Equipment Manufacturer Deere Launches The First Self Driving Tractors
Farm Equipment Manufacturer Deere Launches The First Self Driving Tractors. 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 tractors 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 labour, 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.
Innovative ideas and products such as these are needed in order to combat the challenges that are in the farming industry. Increasing productivity is something that a lot of industries seek to achieve because it means that they will be able to give more value to the world. In terms farming, these tractors will provide a much efficiency way to get big yields in a much shorter time and with less labour, this means that the food they will be providing will increase.
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.
