A 9RX is one of four autonomous machines on the John Deere stand at this week’s CES 2025 in Las Vegas.
Building on the autonomous technology first revealed on an 8R410 at the same North American show in 2022, the company’s second-generation autonomy kit combines advanced computer vision, AI, and cameras for navigation.
The second-generation autonomy kit on the 9RX uses 16 individual cameras arranged in pods to enable a 360-degree view of the field. The advanced autonomy kit also calculates depth more accurately at larger distances, allowing the tractor to pull more equipment and drive faster.
The company is also showing an autonomous 5ML orchard tractor for repetitive air spraying work. Featuring the latest autonomy kit with added Lidar sensors to address the dense canopies found in orchards, the initial machine has a diesel engine. A battery electric tractor of comparable size and capacity to existing diesel 5M/ML models on the market today will follow.
“Our agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping customers all have work that must get done at certain times of the day and year, yet there is not enough available and skilled labour to do the work,” said Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere.
“Autonomy can help address this challenge. That’s why we’re extending our technology stack to enable more machines to operate safely and autonomously in unique and complex environments.”
The other two autonomous machines are an ATD (Articulated Dump Truck) and a battery powered mower. Select machines will be autonomy ready from the factory and the second-generation perception system will be available as a retrofit kit for certain existing machines, providing customers with multiple paths to adoption based on where they are in their technology journey.
The machines are managed via John Deere operations centre mobile, the company’s cloud-based platform. By swiping left to right to start, the machine can be started once placed in the appropriate spot.
Through the app, users also have access to live video, images, data and metrics, and the ability to adjust various factors like speed, and users are notified remotely if there is a problem.
CES 2025 (Consumer Electronics Show)ends on January 10, 2025.
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