What was once considered science fiction continues its march toward reality.

In January, John Deere revealed a fully autonomous tractor that’s field ready for large-scale production. The machine – which will be available to farmers later this year – combines Deere’s 8R tractor, TruSet-enabled chisel plow, GPS guidance system, and new advanced technologies.

With global population continuing to increase, farmers must feed this growing population with less available land and skilled labor while working through variables like changing weather conditions and climate, variations in soil quality, and the presence of weeds and pests – factors that can impact a farmer’s ability to farm during critical times of the year.

The autonomous tractor has six pairs of stereo cameras, which enables 360-degree obstacle detection and distance calculation. Images captured by the cameras pass through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds and determines if the machine continues to move or stop, depending on if an obstacle is detected. The autonomous tractor is also continuously checking its position relative to a geofence to make sure it is operating where it is supposed to and is within less than an inch of accuracy.

To use the autonomous tractor, farmers simply transport the machine to a field and configure it for autonomous operation. Using John Deere Operations Center Mobile, they can start the machine and leave the field while it is working to focus on other tasks while monitoring the machine’s status remotely.

John Deere Operations Center Mobile provides access to live video, images, data, and metrics and allows a farmer to adjust speed, depth, and more. In the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, farmers will be notified remotely and can make needed adjustments.

Based on information provided by John Deere