Kubota has renamed its long-standing MGX range the M6-001 Utility series, which spans the same 104hp to 143hp segment to slot between the smaller M5-002 and higher-spec M6-002

Foresight Autonomous Holdings Ltd, an innovator in automotive vision systems, announced the signing of a multiphase business cooperation agreement with SUNWAY-AI Technology, a global manufacturer of autonomous and unmanned intelligent vehicle products

From March 2022, the LEMKEN Heliodor compact disc harrow will be available with a preparation set for attaching a Vogelsang DosiMat DMX precision spreader

CHCNAV (Shanghai Huace Navigation Technology Ltd.), a global geospatial technology company providing affordable precision agriculture solutions among other allied technologies, offers high-precision automated steering for accurate and efficient farming

John Deere unveiled a fully autonomous tractor ready for large-scale production at CES 2022, a global tech event hosted by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)

The machine combines Deere's 8R tractor, TruSet-enabled chisel plough, GPS guidance system and other advanced technologies. The autonomous tractor will be available for purchase in late 2022, said Deere. 

According to Global Agricultural Productivity, a research initiative by Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Science and Virginia Tech Foundation, the global population is expected to grow from about 8 billion to nearly 10 billion people by 2050, increasing the global food demand by 50%. Furthermore, farmers are required to feed the growing population with less available land and skilled labour and work through the variables inherent in farming like changing weather conditions and variations in soil quality.

The autonomous tractor features six pairs of stereo cameras, which enables 360-degree obstacle detection and the calculation of distance. Images captured by the cameras are passed through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds and determines the vehicular movement depending on obstacle detection. The tractor also continuously checks its position relative to a geofence, ensuring its operational location within less than an inch of accuracy.

Configuring the tractor for autonomous operation requires the operator only to transport the vehicle to the job area. The John Deere Operations Center Mobile, allows the operator to start the machine by a simple left to right swipe on their mobile phone. The app also allows the operator to monitor the vehicle’s status remotely. 

John Deere Operations Center Mobile also provides access to live video, images, data and metrics to allow the operator to adjust speed, depth and more. In the event of job quality anomalies or machine health issues, farmers will be notified remotely and can make adjustments to optimise the performance of the machine.