Autonomous equipment rivalry

A number of autonomous agricultural machinery concepts have been revealed at international agricultural shows in recent years, and several are in the testing phase. The question is, when will this equipment become commercially available?

- Stehan loete

The greatest advantage of autonomous agricultural equipment is probably productivity. A less obvious benefit is that it largely eliminates the requirement for skilled operators.

With the shortage of skilled operators in agriculture, these people can be expensive to recruit. Seasonality and low equipment utilisation during off-periods also mean that they are required for only a few months of the year, which further compounds the operator supply and demand conundrum.

One way in which equipment manufacturers have responded to these challenges is to invest in the development of the ‘driverless’ tractor.

Globally, agricultural shows are seeing a steep increase in displays of robotics and autonomous equipment, as seen at the recent AgriTechnica trade fair in Hanover, Germany.

To an outsider, agriculture might appear to be the ideal enviroment for autonomous machines, and one would expect development to be way ahead of any other sector. Yet this is not the case, as there are a number of unique challenges in agriculture.

Firstly, connectivity in rural areas is often inadequate. Secondly, agriculture has variables that farmers know all too well: soil composition can vary in a land, saturation can be a problem, and the weather constantly changes, so a balancing act is required.

All of this makes the autonomous tractor a dream project (or a nightmare) for an artificial-intelligence or machine-learning developer. The first to succeed will indeed be worthy of some recognition.

THE NEWCOMERS

It’s interesting to see how many newcomers find an opportunity to enter the equipment market through an autonomous solution. In fact, it may be easier for these designers to arrive at solutions, as they have the freedom for more out-of-the-box thinking than the design departments of existing manufacturers. For the latter, considerable adaptation is required.