How connected and autonomous technology is being utilised by farm and off-road vehicles - SMMT
Automation and driverless technology are tipped as major growth areas in the HGV and passenger transport areas in the coming years, but it is agriculture that’s years ahead of the mainstream commercial vehicle industry. John Deere have been using AI, GPS, camera and radar technology to operate with some level of autonomy for over two decades.
Automation and driverless technology are tipped as major growth areas in the HGV and passenger transport areas in the coming years, but there’s one area of the motor industry that’s years ahead of the mainstream commercial vehicle industry and is already making life easier for operators and drivers.

Indeed, it’s neither Google, with its well-documented driverless car, or any of the autonomous shuttle manufacturers that are leading the revolution when it comes to driverless technology.

That accolade falls to American tractor manufacturer John Deere, whose famous green and yellow farm machines have been using AI, GPS, camera and radar technology to operate with some level of autonomy for over two decades.

Last month, the farm equipment manufacturer took a stand at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. CES is widely regarded as the world’s flagship show for technology, where the eyes of the media are often focused on the latest phone, computer or home entertainment technology.

A giant green combine harvester, then, is hardly what you’d expect to be under the spotlight at such an event, but it put technologies like autonomous driving and precise GPS data and their role in today’s farm life in the spotlight.

“Finding qualified skilled labour in rural America is getting harder and harder, and farmers see autonomous driving as a tool that helps them hire less skilled operators to work in the cab,” said Deanna Kovar, John Deere’s Director of Production and Precision for Agricultural Machinery.

“We’re here to help [people] understand how technology applies to agriculture,” Kovar said. “Understanding how to use digital technology to improve farming processes reduces costs, improves accuracy and drives efficiency.”

While current legislation stipulates that all agricultural machinery needs to operate with human involvement, full or part-automation makes life much easier for the operator, as well as allowing them to focus on other areas of the job they are using it for, such as crop binding or spraying.

Every new John Deere tractor now has some form of inbuilt autonomy via the company’s AutoTrac system, which uses GPS to plot routes through fields and ensure that the machine covers the entire acreage, rather than marginal levels of human error which can have a small but noticeable effect on crop yields.

It’s most recent creation, though, tests the boundaries of electrification and automation even further – a tractor designed for field-only use, but which is powered by a conventional plug rather than battery, with a 1km-long cable allowing it to venture off into a field providing it’s never too far from a power source.

The world’s first plug-in electric tractor has no batteries at all, just a 200kWh electric motor that powers its driven axle. John Deere’s autonomous driving technology is what ensures the tractor doesn’t have any accidents, like trample over its own cable.

Obviously, corded vehicles would have no viable future as on-road transport, but for CV applications that require work within a pre-defined area such as airside airport work or warehouse operations, it’s a viable emissions-free option that will be cheaper and require a much smaller infrastructure investment than battery-electric vehicles.

It’s not just John Deere that’s driving the evolution of driverless tractors, though, with US based Case-International Harvester (Case IH) developing heavier grade vehicles designed for large scale agricultural operations.

“In today’s agronomy economy, producers know they must focus on achieving the highest level of efficiency if they want to grow and succeed,” said Case IH Marketing Director, Tom Dean. “That’s why we are intensifying our focus on the combination of advanced technologies and agronomic design in the pursuit of High-Efficiency Farming.”

Case IH unveiled its autonomous tractor concept at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, developed alongside IVECO and New Holland owner, CNH Industrial.

“As part of our innovation process, we have worked with CNH Industrial to develop this High-Efficiency Farming concept tractor to demonstrate what it can do and get a reaction from producers,” said Leo Bose, Case IH’s Advanced Farming Systems Marketing Manager. “We just want to know how much interest producers have in these autonomous features, and what else they would like to see from us. It’s not a product launch, by any means. But it could certainly lead to one, or several, down the road.”

Through the use of radar, LiDAR (light imaging, detection, and ranging) and onboard video cameras, the vehicle can sense stationary or moving obstacles in its path and will stop on its own until the operator, notified by audio and visual alerts, assigns a new path. The vehicle will also stop immediately if GPS signal or position data is lost, or if the manual stop button is pushed. Machine tasks can also be modified in real time with remote interface or automatic weather warnings.

“An autonomous tractor like this could seamlessly integrate into an existing farm machinery fleet, with minimal operational changes,” Bose said. “Multiple autonomous vehicles could be put to work in one field or separate fields, on the same tasks or consecutive ones. It could allow a person working with no employees to operate multiple tractors, or could complement very large operations that have challenges finding ample skilled workers.”

On a much smaller scale, in October last year, Japanese manufacturer Yanmar introduced two new models, the Auto Tractor and Robot Tractor. The first is a manned vehicle with self-operating features and the second is the first fully-autonomous, unmanned tractor to go on commercial sale.

Equipped with Yanmar’s Information and Communications Technology network, which uses precision positioning data and robot technology coupled to its ‘SMARTPILOT’ autonomous technology, the Robot Tractors are designed to enhance farm management efficiency, save on labour costs and operate completely independently of any human input. Yanmar’s Auto Tractors are the smallest and least expensive deployment of driverless technology yet butat present, legislation in other markets prevent them from being sold outside of Japan.

“Yanmar is poised to deliver 21st century agriculture, improving lifestyles and delivering value to [South East Asia’s] farmers,” said Yanmar Agribusiness Corporation President Hiroaki Kitaoka.