As driverless cars begin to roam the streets, autonomous farm machinery is not far behind. As Harvest Public Media’s Amy Mayer reports, the same fundamental technology may someday let a farmer send his tractor off to work on its own.
At a recent farm show in Iowa, U.S. -equipment maker New Holland, demoed one of its large tractors outfitted to run autonomously. It can position itself on a field, and pull a seeder while its “remote supervisor” monitors from a desktop or tablet. It uses the same radar, and other technologies as self-driving cars, to identify obstacles.
But New Holland’s Dan Halliday says those tools still need some tweaking. And the concept has to pass safety rules. Halliday says farm equipment will benefit from the work on driverless cars when it comes to safety.
"Obviously, we'll monitor that going forward and make sure we adhere to everything that's asked," Halliday says. "And as soon as we can, for sure, it'll be commercially available."
Case IH also has unveiled a driverless tractor, which uses the same third-party technology.
