Whenever we think of tractors, we¡¯ve often imagined a farmer sitting inside it, navigating it through the fields, however, popular tractor company John Deere has now introduced autonomous tractors that remove the farmer out of the farming equation.
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The fully-autonomous tractors dubbed 8R was showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show 2022. They've actually been in testing with a select group of customers ¡°for a few seasons¡± with prototypes being piloted in fields since 2019.?
The tractor sports six pairs of stereo cameras that are powered under the hood by Nvidia Jetson modules that offer a complete panorama of its surroundings. The camera array supports 360-degree obstacle detection.
As per the company¡¯s claims, the images captured by the panoramic cameras pass through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in a matter of 100 milliseconds and controls its movement.
The tractor features an autonomous GPS guidance system paired with geofencing that prevents the tractor from stepping out of a particular territory. In fact, the geofencing is claimed to be accurate to within less than 1 inch.
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The entire tractor¡¯s operations can be remotely controlled by an app on a smartphone.?
This means a farmer can farm on the field, without really being on the field. A few taps on their phone could set the tractor to do, say ploughing or harvesting for the day, eliminating his need entirely. The app also offers access to live images, video and data on the task executed.?
The tractors are going to go on sale later this year. Do you think they'll be a huge hit? Let us know in the comments below, and keep reading Indiatimes.com for the latest science and technology news.