Friday Feature: John Deere 8R Autonomous (self-driving) Tractor

by | Jan 14, 2022 | Ag in the News, Farm Equipment, Feature Video, Field Crops, General Agriculture

This week’s feature video was produced by John Deere to introduce their new 8R Fully Autonomous Tractor at the Consumer Electronic Show.  John Deere revealed that their autonomous tractor is ready for large-scale production in 2022. Imagine a tractor that drives itself when you want it to.  Watch the video and see how the tractor can be set up to do tillage with no one driving it from an app on your smart phone.  Plus it is guided by GPS and obstacle avoidance cameras, so it it can run for 24 hours, if you want it to.  But, the tractor still has a full cab and controls, so you can also drive it when you want full control.  Check out the video to gain a glimpse of this new technology for farming.

The machine combines Deere’s 8R tractor, TruSet-enabled chisel plow, GPS guidance system, and new advanced technologies. The autonomous tractor has 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 if the machine continues to move or stops, depending on if an obstacle is detected. The autonomous tractor is also continuously checking its position relative to a geofence, ensuring it is operating where it is supposed to, and is within less than an inch of accuracy.The autonomous tractor will be available to farmers later this year.

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If you enjoyed this video, you might want to check out others from the featured video archives:  Friday Feature Archive

If you come across an interesting, inspiring, humorous or something new and innovative related to agriculture, please send in a link, so we can share it with our readers.  Use the share button from the YouTube or Facebook video you like and send the link via email to:  Doug Mayo

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