At the recent Ag in Motion farm show, Versatile revealed it is developing production-ready, fully autonomous machines, just like the big four brands of agricultural equipment manufacturers.
Versatile announced a partnership with Saskatchewan technology startup Mojow Autonomous Solutions to put a full autonomy option into its four-wheel drive tractors.
“They’ve been working with us for several months now and this is the first time we’ve publicly announced we’re working with them,” said Adam Reid, vice-president of sales and marketing at Versatile during the Ag in Motion farm show held in Langham, Sask. in July. “We have an autonomous tractor option. It’s not commercially available yet, but it will be at some point.”
Mojow Autonomous Solutions first demonstrated its evolving self-driving system, the EYEBOX Autonomous Navigation Controller at the 2022 show. That system is being integrated into the Versatile tractor.
Partnering with a technology firm is how several ag equipment brands are approaching the race to commercial autonomy. Reid said that approach made sense for Versatile as well, and Mojow proved to be the most compatible organization for them to work with.
He expected the partnership will allow the brand to bring a fully autonomous high-horsepower tractor to market in a shorter time period than first thought.
“We went out into the marketplace to see who was doing autonomy, how were they doing it,” he said. “We really wanted to find someone who matched our philosophy, which of course for tractors is simple, reliable, easy to service and maintain. That’s been our hallmark for years. We wanted to find a partner that understood that. When we partnered with Mojow, we liked their philosophy. Because they’re small, they’re a lot more nimble, and we’re kind of the same way.
“The team at Mojow has been working with the team at Versatile so when it does become commercially available, it’s going to be easy to operate and understand.”
While several technology firms were willing to work with Versatile on integrating autonomy into a tractor with a CVT transmission, finding someone willing to work with a powershift instead wasn’t easy.
“To get to the powershift model for us was a really big deal,” Reid added. “We have the Cummins engine and Cat (powershift) transmission. I really don’t see us going away from that combination anytime soon. To have Mojow develop autonomy on a tractor with a powershift transmission, for us that’s huge.”
