Machine vision. On Tuesday, the company unveiled a machine that could prove just as transformative: a fully autonomous tractor. It can find its way to a field on its own when given a route and coordinates, then plow the soil or sow seeds without instructions, avoiding obstacles as it goes.
A farmer can give the machine new orders using a smartphone 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. Pros: The 3D The Tractors. It is a nice game to play. I like to play this game.. It is fun to play because I like to play this game. It is a nice game. An idea when working at the farm. A very nice program that is easily to work with. It gives also gives an idea of what is happening in a farmers field.
This program helps to identify different kinds of equipment used in the field More. The farming simulator that gives Farming Simulator a run for its money. Laws concerning the use of this software vary from country to country. Because John Deere tractors have had self-driving technology for decades, configuring them to be fully autonomous is relatively easy.
It will take only about a day to install the equipment and test a machine before a farmer can take it home to use in the field, Kovar said. Most autonomous cars being tested use a depth sensor called lidar , while Tesla employs an array of cameras, sensors and radar. John Deere, however, believes that stereo cameras are the way to get self-driving technology into as many fields as possible.
Its autonomous machine has 12 such cameras. To make the 8R autonomous, John Deere mounts a stereo camera pod on the front of the tractor and another pod on the back. Each pod has three pairs of ruggedized stereo cameras that essentially work like human eyes.
Images are collected by both and are then combined to help the machine locate potential obstacles that are between 45 feet and 90 feet away. While stereo cameras work for John Deere's current autonomous tractor, it may use lidar, radar, ultrasonic and other technologies for more difficult tasks in the future like operating in standing crops, Hindman said. Steady cellular connectivity is a prerequisite for using the autonomous system in a field. If the tractor loses its cell signal, it will stop and won't start back up until it reestablishes a connection and gets the OK from the farmer through an app.
Inside the machine, John Deere installed multiple ways to stop and manually control the tractor, including through the throttle and normal brakes. The farmer also can grab the steering wheel to take over operation of the machine. The tractor can still be used manually for other tasks, not just autonomous operations, and the cab looks no different. Because of those changes made to the machine itself, a farmer can't easily move the autonomous pod from one tractor to another.
Along with the redundant brakes, John Deere has built other security into the system. Data that's shared between the tractor and the smartphone is encrypted on both ends, and the company embedded security in the software on the machines. The tractor also has redundant systems on board to be sure the cameras and GPS signal are present. If those go offline, the tractor will stop.
Early on, John Deere's autonomous technology had troubles with shadows. And leaves. And patches of dirt that were different colors than the others. All of them triggered the tractor to stop and send an alert about obstacles. But the technology is now at the point where the false error rate is low, Hindman said.
To help avoid false alerts of obstructions, John Deere's autonomous 8R runs with the lights on all the time -- an unusual sight in farm country.
Leaving the lights on all the time "makes the environment that we're taking images of more consistent throughout the day and over time," Hindman said. And the tractor actually performs better at night than during the day because there's more contrast in the image data, he said. Discover the latest news and best reviews in smartphones and carriers from CNET's mobile experts.
John Deere has a US-based tele-support staff to examine obstacle alerts from the tractor. If the workers determine it's something minor like leaves that blew across the path, they'll let the machine resume operations without bothering the farmer. If the tractor comes across something like a large rock, it will stop because the rock could get stuck in the tillage tool.
The tractor sends a push notification to the farmer with an image of the obstacle. John Deere built in the ability for the tractor to route around those obstacles so the farmer doesn't have to come to the field for every issue.
Nimz has been testing John Deere's autonomous equipment on his farm for four years, but he still drives by the field where the tractor is running by itself, just to marvel at the fact it's actually working without anyone in the cab.
He had jumped out of his combine to talk with me before quickly resuming work. The big difference with this new technology is that drivers will now be able to set-and-forget some aspects of their self-driving tractors. This input is then analyzed by machine vision algorithms, which spot unexpected obstacles.
The farmer can then view the images themselves and decide if they want to plot a new course or check the situation in person. Part of the value of autonomy is allowing farmers to focus on other tasks.
Right now, John Deere is focusing on the job of tillage — preparing soil for cultivation, either by turning over the earth, removing crop residue, or plowing this material back into the field to return nutrients to the soil. That makes it a perfect target for automation. Of course, the proof of the pudding is always in the eating, and despite years of testing, there will no doubt be teething problems when it comes to using this technology in farms.
The company will be selling its new autonomy package as equipment to be retrofitted onto a number of its more recent tractors. But it has not released pricing — either upfront costs or annual subscriptions which it charges for its autosteer products.
The underlying equipment, though, is already extremely pricy. A John Deere 8R tractor and chisel plow used for tillage will set farmers back hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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