Deere & Co., launched an autonomous tractor at CES which is designed for large-scale farming. The company is planning to sell the tractor later this year.

The vehicle sports a typical green shade, a steering wheel in the cab, massive tires around classic yellow wheels, and a convolutional neural network, which comes standard in the autonomous tractor. More features like redundant braking and steering systems for an added layer of safety.

The autonomous tractor is a featured version of Deere’s existing 8R series machine with 410 horsepower. Existing 8R users can upgrade their tractors with the autonomous driving system.
The Deere tractor introduced at the CES 2022, is not the first autonomous tractor. Smaller autonomous tractors are being used in specialty-crop farms.

Aron Cory, research manager, International Data Corp says, “the application of the technology to larger vehicles is just getting started and promises to be highly consequential. The move from conventional tractors to autonomous tractors is going to be comparable from the move from horses to the combustion engine.”

Deere says, “new 8R series tractor is designed for large-scale farming applications. The Moline, Ill., company, founded in 1837, is the largest U.S. farm equipment manufacturer by sales.”
The price for the tractor is yet to decide by company.

The autonomous tractor is equipped with six pairs of cameras, three in the front and three in the rear which provides a 360 degree view of the tractor’s surroundings. The images are served to the on board computer, where a convolutional neural network ,an advanced form of artificial intelligence that analyzes images and classifies pixels in milliseconds, identifies objects in the tractor’s path, and determines whether the tractor should remain on course, steer around an obstacle, or stop.

A farmer can monitor and manage the autonomous tractor from a mobile application that provides live video and continuous data on the machine’s operations. Farmers have the option to drive the vehicle from the cab.