Deere Introduces First Fully Autonomous Tractor

Deere and Company recently unveiled a fully autonomous tractor, which company officials say will transform the future of agriculture. Wired says the new 8R tractor uses six pairs of cameras and advanced artificial intelligence to navigate its environment. The tractor can find its way to a field when given a route and coordinates. Once there, it can plow soil or plant seeds without instructions, and the machine avoids the obstacles in each field. Farmers can also give the tractor new instructions through a smartphone app.

Other tractors on the market can operate autonomously, but only in limited ways. They can follow a defined route through GPS but can’t avoid obstacles. Others feature limited autonomy but still need a farmer behind the wheel.

Deere hasn’t announced how much the autonomous tractor will cost.  The 8R relies on neural network algorithms to interpret information from the cameras.

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