American manufacturers Case IH and New Holland have unveiled two autonomous concept tractors. They are capable of reducing the environmental impact of agriculture by making the most of favourable weather windows and limiting the use of pesticides.
Making the most of favourable weather windows, especially for the harvest, and thereby drastically reducing the use of pesticides, is every farmer's dream. A dream that goes hand in hand with the goal of limiting drift losses or double applications of both fertilisers and all those substances that ward off the onset of pests, fungi and moulds — a true scourge of crops. These aspirations align with consumers' growing interest in organic products, and until now they have had to be reconciled with the constraints that technology imposes, first and foremost processing times. Now, however, an epochal development looms on the horizon, one potentially capable of revolutionising agricultural activity. The first driverless tractor prototypes have made their debut, capable of speeding up and rationalising field operations.
First came GPS systems and soil mapping. Then automatic steering systems gave a strong boost to the spread of hi-tech in agriculture. Today it is drones that are leading the way, making it possible to "read" both soil morphology and the vegetative state of crops with a level of precision previously unknown. And tomorrow? The future will be the domain of autonomous tractors, capable of managing a large part of the working phases without any direct human input. While the automotive world has long been engaged in developing autonomous vehicles capable of navigating traffic by detecting — through the interaction of cameras and radar — cars, pedestrians and obstacles so as to respond to changing scenarios, this technology is now also breaking into the agricultural sector, promising to overturn established practices. The driving forces behind this challenge to the status quo are American brands Case IH and New Holland, both part of the Italian-American group CNH Industrial.
At the Farm Progress Show in Boone, in the state of Iowa (USA), Case IH and New Holland presented two autonomous tractor concepts, the ultimate expression of precision agriculture. A conventional tractor without a cab in the first case, and a machine capable of accommodating an optional driver in the second, to the great benefit of operational flexibility. Both vehicles are capable of managing a wide range of implements without human intervention, by virtue of an interface that allows remote monitoring of programmed operations. The on-board computer takes into account the width of the mounted implement — for example a plough, a seed drill or a sprayer — plotting the most efficient route based on the terrain, obstacles and other machines operating in the same field. The technical foundation of this solution features a combination of cameras and Lidar lasers — an acronym for Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging — which determine the distance of an object or surface through remote sensing. Should the tractor detect an unexpected obstacle, it stops and allows the operator to assign a new route.
"In many parts of the world, finding skilled labour during peak season is an almost insurmountable challenge," said Andreas Klauser, brand president of Case IH. "Even though we already offer telematics and automatic steering systems on board our machinery for vehicle and personnel management, these new concept tractors can even be monitored and controlled remotely. We aim to ensure greater operational efficiency in activities such as soil preparation, seeding, spraying and harvesting." For the time being, the Case IH and New Holland prototypes are purely technology showcases, but driverless technology could be further developed to be adapted to conventional machines — for example to exploit real-time weather data for the optimal application of inputs such as nitrogen, herbicides or fungicides.
Beyond tractors, autonomous driving would also be useful for other machinery, above all forage harvesters and combine harvesters, which could thus operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, making the most of favourable weather windows. The operator, as mentioned, would not disappear; they would still be "present", but not on board the vehicles. They would in fact be able to supervise operations remotely and, where necessary, adjust routes using a simple PC or tablet. At the same time, the autonomous driving technology would take weather conditions fully into account. In the event of impending rain, for example, it would automatically halt spraying activity and move the tractor to a field predicted to remain dry, eliminating waste and the risk of substance drift, to the overall benefit of reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. A development that fits squarely within New Holland's Clean Energy Leader project, whose stated objective is to produce more food for everyone, using fewer resources.