CES Tech Fair: Tractors can be remotely controlled from a smartphone

The renowned American tractor manufacturer John Deere and French agricultural robot start-up Naïo have chosen the Las Vegas Tech Show (CES) to present their new unmanned vehicles They can plow large areas or weed vegetable fields.

For farmers who must juggle labor shortages, climate change and protecting the environment, while feeding a growing world population, builders are developing a new generation of autonomous machines.

In the most recent of John Deere, combining its popular 8R tractor, GPS and new technologies, you don’t need to be in the cab or even on the ground: the farmer can control everything from his smartphone.

Once the machine is brought into the field, the farmer simply needs to walk around it to make sure everything is in place and you can turn it on just by touching your phone.

Equipped with twelve cameras and artificial intelligence, the machine stops automatically as soon as it perceives an obstacle and sends a signal.

It will be available in North America this year, the company’s chief technology officer, Jahmy Hindman, confirmed to AFP.

The Versions for spreading fertilizers or seeding will come later. For the crops, however, it is still a bit complicated. Prices have not been specified.

For nearly 20 years, farmers have used GPS-enabled steering assist functions to make lines straighter than a human, for example.

“Our customers are probably more prepared for self-sufficiency in agriculture than elsewhere because they have used very sophisticated automation systems for a long time,” Hindman explains.

Other large tractor manufacturers are also working on similar machines.

The American New Holland had presented a concept in 2016, while the Japanese Kubota unveiled in 2020 a prototype that completely eliminated the cabin.

Repetitive tasks

Farmers are used to automating their tasks, be it increasingly complex tractors or mechanical cow milking.

Machines generally improve their productivity while freeing them from repetitive and physically demanding tasks.

Gaëtan Séverac and Aymeric Barthes launched Naïo in 2011 after having discussed the problems of the lack of labor with the farmers.

They also realized that Mechanical robots, guided by GPS with precision to the centimeter, could limit the use of chemicals.

In Las Vegas they introduce them to the Americans Ted, a robot that can “step” over vines to remove weeds from the ground and turn around on its own at the end of the task.

They also have a little “farm helper” named Oz that can dig, weed or furrow, as well as Dino, a robot capable of weeding crops in rows.

All are equipped with sensors, lasers, cameras or probes, allowing the robot to understand its surroundings. They can also collect useful data for the operator.

“Farmers are quite curious and interested, but for two or three years they no longer see us as a device for the future,” Gaëtan Séverac told AFP.

For him, the use of autonomous machines will gain ground first in specialized crops, with very high added value per hectare and that require more work, such as vegetables or vineyards, then in large cereal crops.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, drones and even satellites are part of this movement.

The agricultural sector accounts for a quarter of the revenues of the satellite imagery company Planet Labs. “We can assess the chlorophyll level (in plants) thanks to the sensors we use to take images,” explains one of its co-founders, Robbie Schingler, to AFP.

“This allows you to determine the health of a crop” and possibly add water or fertilizers.

For Barrett Hill, 36, a poultry farmer in Illinois, these new technologies are not so extraordinary. “The addition of computers and tools of this type makes us more efficient ”, He says, however, he is not yet sure if this technology is for his family’s farm.

“I think it must be very expensive,” he estimates, “and I think I want to be out there doing it myself.” (I)