Driverless tractor
A driverless tractor is an autonomous farm vehicle that delivers a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds for the purposes of tillage and other agricultural tasks.
Like other unmanned ground vehicles, they are programmed to independently observe their position, decide speed, and avoid obstacles such as people, animals, or objects in the field while performing their task.
They operate simply with the aid of a supervisor monitoring the progress at a control station or with a manned tractor in lead.
[3] In the 1950s, Ford developed a driverless tractor that they called "The Sniffer", but it was never produced because it could not be operated without running wire underground through the field.
[6] Most commonly, the term is used to describe a farm vehicle that provides the power and traction to mechanize agricultural tasks.
In order for it to be successful, the tractor must be able to follow deterministic tasks (a task that is defined before it starts, such as a path to follow on a field), have reactive behavior (the ability to react to an unknown situation such as an obstacle in the way), and have reflexive responses (making a decision without hesitation or time-consuming calculations such as changing the steering angle if necessary).
[10] Ultimately, the tractor should imitate a human in its ability to observe spatial position and make decisions such as speed.
Currently, the majority of fully autonomous tractors navigate using lasers that bounce signals off several mobile transponders located around the field.
Using GPS positioning and radio feedback, automation software manages the vehicle's path and controls farming implements.
The equipment will be added to the 8R 410 tractor and will include a total of 12 stereo cameras and an Nvidia GPU that can be controlled from a smartphone.
[14] Creating technology that stays safe in all scenarios where failure could possibly occur takes a lot of programming and time.
Current leading manufacturers are John Deere, Autonomous Tractor Corporation, Fendt and Case IH.
Based on these satellite signals, the tractor follows a previously programmed route via an electronic map.
These antenna are also for human operators to control the tractor if satellite signals have trouble penetrating buildings or heavy vegetation.
[18] In January 2012, Terry Anderson established a company called Autonomous Tractor Corporation (ATC) located in North Dakota.
[17] Anderson stated that his goal is to build 25 units of his automated tractor in 2013 and sell them at a discount price for farmers to test.
[2] Instead of focusing on a completely independent piece of technology, Fendt made GuideConnect to work together with operator-controlled machinery.
The business model is to procure the machines from the OEMS (John Deere, Case New Holland, Agco), outfit them with sensors, actuators and compute and then provide them to growers.
