Later this year farmers will be able to buy a John Deere 8R tractor that can perform tillage operations autonomously.
January 4, at the Consumer Electronics Show 2022 in Las Vegas, John Deere revealed the new system capable of fully autonomous operations, and it doesn’t require an operator sitting on the edge of the field ready to take control if guidance systems fail.
The tractor is driven to the field by an operator, who will then hop out and activate the system with their smartphone.
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The machine will then perform pre-determined tillage operations, and it will notify the farmer via their smartphone if it finds itself in a situation it can’t sort out by itself.
Operators of the AI-based autonomous system can leave the tractor working in the field and monitor its progress through the tractor’s cameras and sensors via the John Deere Operations Center Mobile.
Working speed and tillage depth can be controlled remotely.
The autonomous 8R has six pairs of stereo cameras that provide a 360-degree obstacle detection system that can calculate the distance of objects.
A deep neural network is used to classify each pixel in each image in approximately 100 milliseconds and it will stop the tractor if it detects an obstacle or something it can’t identify.
A John Deere Starfire 7000 GPS system is used to guide the tractor with a sub-inch accuracy, and a geofence is used to ensure the tractor will not stray off a planned field.
Watch for an in-depth look at the autonomous 8R tractor in the next edition of The Western Producer.
