John Deere has showcased several autonomous machines during a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to support its customers in agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping.
While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labour availability.
“Our agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping customers all have work that must get done at certain times of the day and year, yet there is not enough available and skilled labour to do the work,” says Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere. “Autonomy can help address this challenge. That’s why we’re extending our technology stack to enable more machines to operate safely and autonomously in unique and complex environments. This will not only benefit our customers, but all of us who rely on them to provide the food, fuel, fibre, infrastructure, and landscaping care that we depend on every day.”
Building on John Deere autonomous technology first revealed at CES 2022, the company’s second-generation autonomy kit combines advanced computer vision, AI, and cameras to help the machines navigate their environments.
A key highlight at the CES press conference was John Deere’s autonomous 9RX tractor for large-scale agriculture. With the second-generation autonomy kit, featuring 16 individual cameras arranged in pods to enable a 360-degree view of the field, farmers can step away from the machine and focus their time on other important jobs. The advanced autonomy kit also calculates depth more accurately at larger distances, allowing the tractor to pull more equipment and drive faster.
The autonomous 5ML orchard tractor for air blast spraying features the latest autonomy kit with added Lidar sensors to address the dense canopies found in orchards.
As a sustainable solution for their farming operations, John Deere presented the E-Power prototype, an autonomy-ready, zero tailpipe emissions tractor. It is intended for those in specialty crop and dairy and livestock sectors. The tractor will deliver a continuous 130-horsepower output.
Commercial landscaping is a highly competitive industry and having the staff to support different bids is essential. The autonomous commercial mower leverages the same camera technology as other John Deere autonomous machines, but on a reduced scale since the machine has a smaller footprint. With two cameras on the front, left, right, and rear, 360-degree coverage is achieved, and staff can focus on other aspects of the job.
Quarries supply the essential raw materials vital for building roads, buildings, and infrastructure, and it’s a complex process to mine, process, and transport materials. Using the second-generation kit, the 460 P-Tier Autonomous Articulated Dump Truck (ADT) will handle the repetitive tasks of transporting material around the quarry to facilitate different steps in the cycle.
The John Deere autonomy kit will be available pre-installed on new machines and as retrofit kits for certain existing machines.
Autonomous machines are managed via John Deere Operations Centre Mobile, the company’s cloud-based platform. By swiping left to right to start, the machine can be started once placed in the appropriate spot. Through the app, users also have access to live video, images, data and metrics, and the ability to adjust various factors like speed. In the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, users will be notified remotely so they can make necessary adjustments.
