Autonomous skid steer loaders form the basis of the contract farming business of North American company Farb Guidance Systems. So what jobs can you do with a driverless loader? More than you might think …

For the past two years, Farb Guidance Systems has quietly run six Cat 299D skid steers in the Pacific North West, and it reckons to have logged over 2,000 hours of operation and covered around 8,000ha (20,000 acres) of mainly wheat, OSR and potato land. We caught up with three of the six machines, along with company president and founder Dave Farb, in a field in Iowa for a demo of these unusual vehicles.