Walldorf, Germany: John Deere has revealed several new autonomous machines at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, to support customers in agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping.

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.

While each of these industries experiences its 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,” said Jahmy Hindman, Chief Technology Officer at John Deere, an Executive Member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.

Hindman added: “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, fiber, infrastructure, and landscaping care that we depend on every day.”

Autonomy expanding to more machines:

• Autonomous 9RX tractor for large-scale agriculture: Tillage is one of the busiest times of the year for farmers. 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.
• Autonomous 5ML orchard tractor for air blast spraying: Protecting crops through air blast spraying is a challenging and repetitive job. The tractor features the latest autonomy kit with added Lidar sensors to address the dense canopies found in orchards.
• Battery electric tractor: For those seeking a sustainable solution for their farming operations, John Deere presents 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, providing instant power and torque to meet demanding tasks.
• Autonomous battery electric mower for commercial landscaping: 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 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.
• 460 P-Tier Autonomous Articulated Dump Truck (ADT) for quarry operations: 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 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, providing customers with multiple paths to adoption based on where they are in their technology journey.

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.