Autonomy was a popular topic at CES…Hindman describes autonomy the same way, saying Deere has already made a down payment on autonomy for the future with its autonomous tillage solution. He says the company started with tillage, as that was the easiest place to start.
“It’s the most practical from a technology perspective place for us to start, but eventually that’s going to become an autonomous planting opportunity, it’s going to become an autonomous grain cart opportunity. When we get tractor jobs finished, we’ll look at sprayers and at combines,” says Hindman. “Our goal is by 2030, in certain production systems, to be able to offer farmers a fully autonomous production system – from spring tillage and planting all the way through harvest.”
Deere is one of the best bets in autonomous driving and its stock has been flat for 3.5 years now. :(. Agriculture in general could really benefit from autonomy, especially given this country’s feelings about immigration these days.
Even Caterpillar was in it once (still?). I once had a link to a 250 ton Cat self-driving dump truck. 250 tons! It was actually sold to customers. Link has disappeared however.
I like the idea. It is a less complicated environment and fewer outside actors to complicate things.
On a side note, the linked article went on to say that EV was not so good on the farm. The weight of the batteries was a big problem along with the short work cycle.
“In rough terms, I would say in 100 horsepower and under, and in relatively light duty cycles, lithium-ion chemistry batteries can work,” he says. “You can package enough energy into the tractor to make that work. As you get into higher power levels? The answer to that is no.”
“I talked about the 8R tractors,” he says. “When I ran the numbers on it, if you power that with a lithium-ion battery today, it’s twice the volume, twice the weight, twice the mass, and four times the cost. That just doesn’t pencil.”
Where is it written that “self driving” has to be all electric? They already have electrical systems to power GPS and such. Adding “turning mechanism” seems pretty trivial.
It isn’t. In the interview with the Deere CTO he specifically said yes to autonomy and no to electric.
~ The batteries needed are too large and too heavy. This extra weight limits travel on wet ground and compacts the soil (not good).
~ A battery work cycle of, say, four hours is much too short particularly at harvest time where 15 hours/day is the norm.
You’d be surprised! There is at least one case where a giant dump truck at a mine is electric and it consumes practically no electricity. The mine is at the top of a hill. Charge the batteries to get the truck to the mine face. On the way down full load regenerative breaking charges the batteries. Dump and repeat.
Same principle as mining hoppers carrying ore down from mines to the stamping mills. The moment steel cables existed so did efficient mine transport.
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(In 1896 great granddad designed and installed a cabled hopper system in a Californa gold mine using the excess of energy from transporting ore downhill to the stamping mill to run water pumps in the depths of the mine.)