John Deere's Self-Driving Tractor Lets Farmers Leave the Cab -- and the Field (cnet.com) 123
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Agricultural equipment maker John Deere has announced its latest piece of autonomous farming kit: a package of hardware and software that combines machine learning with the company's GPS-powered auto-steer features to create a "fully autonomous tractor." The technology to support autonomous farming has been developing rapidly in recent years, but John Deere claims this is a significant step forward. With this technology, farmers will not only be able to take their hands off the wheel of their tractor or leave the cab -- they'll be able to leave the field altogether, letting the equipment do the work without them while monitoring things remotely using their smartphone. "This is not a demo. It's not a concept machine. It's something we've had in the field with farmers for years and will be taking to production in fall," Deanna Kovar, vice president of production and precision ag production systems at John Deere, told The Verge. "We're not going from no tech all the way up to an autonomous machine," says Kovar. "John Deere's AutoTrac solution has taken the job of steering in the field out of the operators' hands for almost 20 years now." Today's announcement, she says, builds on these solutions.
The big difference with this new technology is that drivers will now be able to set-and-forget some aspects of their self-driving tractors. The company's autonomy kit includes six pairs of stereo cameras that capture a 360-degree view around the tractor. This input is then analyzed by machine vision algorithms, which spot unexpected obstacles. "All [farmers] need to do is transport [their tractor] to the field, get it set, get out the cab, and use their mobile phone to 'swipe to farm,'" says Kovar. "And every eight hours, they return to give it fuel and move it from field to field."
Although John Deere is presenting this as an autonomous system, it's worth noting that there are humans in the loop, and not just farmers. When the company's algorithms spot something unexpected, images from the cameras will be sent to "tele-operators" -- essentially a call center of third-party contractors who will manually check if the obstacle is a false positive or if the problem has resolved itself. If it's a real issue, they'll escalate things to the farmer via an alert on their mobile app. The farmer can then view the images themselves and decide if they want to plot a new course or check the situation in person. "We've trained the algorithm to know that those are birds flying, you don't have to stop for birds. But if you have, say, a dog in the field, then we'll stop," says Kovar. "We don't want to always alert the farmer because this could be two in the morning. Part of the value of autonomy is allowing farmers to focus on other tasks." At first, the autonomous tractors will focus on the job of tillage. "This is a 'competing priority' job that's usually done around harvest time, says Kofar, meaning farmers may set it aside in favor of more pressing tasks," reports The Verge. "That makes it a perfect target for automation."
"The company will be selling its new autonomy package as equipment to be retrofitted onto a number of its more recent tractors. But it has not released pricing -- either upfront costs or annual subscriptions (which it charges for its autosteer products)."
The big difference with this new technology is that drivers will now be able to set-and-forget some aspects of their self-driving tractors. The company's autonomy kit includes six pairs of stereo cameras that capture a 360-degree view around the tractor. This input is then analyzed by machine vision algorithms, which spot unexpected obstacles. "All [farmers] need to do is transport [their tractor] to the field, get it set, get out the cab, and use their mobile phone to 'swipe to farm,'" says Kovar. "And every eight hours, they return to give it fuel and move it from field to field."
Although John Deere is presenting this as an autonomous system, it's worth noting that there are humans in the loop, and not just farmers. When the company's algorithms spot something unexpected, images from the cameras will be sent to "tele-operators" -- essentially a call center of third-party contractors who will manually check if the obstacle is a false positive or if the problem has resolved itself. If it's a real issue, they'll escalate things to the farmer via an alert on their mobile app. The farmer can then view the images themselves and decide if they want to plot a new course or check the situation in person. "We've trained the algorithm to know that those are birds flying, you don't have to stop for birds. But if you have, say, a dog in the field, then we'll stop," says Kovar. "We don't want to always alert the farmer because this could be two in the morning. Part of the value of autonomy is allowing farmers to focus on other tasks." At first, the autonomous tractors will focus on the job of tillage. "This is a 'competing priority' job that's usually done around harvest time, says Kofar, meaning farmers may set it aside in favor of more pressing tasks," reports The Verge. "That makes it a perfect target for automation."
"The company will be selling its new autonomy package as equipment to be retrofitted onto a number of its more recent tractors. But it has not released pricing -- either upfront costs or annual subscriptions (which it charges for its autosteer products)."
When it leaves you (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When it leaves you (Score:5, Informative)
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John Deere does not sell anything, anymore, it is just rented. They have had a problem up to now they had to let their customers use their equipment. This solves that problem. Now all the customer does is send Deere and Company all their money, job done!
In some respects, this hearkens back to the days of cable plows. Set up a pair of tractor winches at opposite ends of a field with a plow attached to a cable strung between them. Run it back and forth, moving the tractor a bit for each trip across the field. Double-engine ploughing is another name for it. Generally a rental process.
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John Deere tractors drives themselves out the door to avoid license compliance problems.
Glider (sailplane) in a field with a tractor (Score:5, Interesting)
Some years ago I was forced to land a glider in a large field. I had spotted a huge tractor working there, so it would be easy to chat to the farmer.
The tractor then came straight towards the glider. But as it got closer, I saw that there was nobody inside it! I was thinking it must be one of those GPS guided things. I leapt out of the glider, and fortunately the tractor stopped a few meters away.
The door opened, and out got a kid about 7 years old. Must have been peering under the steering wheel.
Who needs automation when you have lots of children?
Re: Glider (sailplane) in a field with a tractor (Score:1)
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There are humans in the loop - they say. So replace the kid with a frustrated overworked teenager with a game controller, somewhere in Asiaâ¦
That strategy makes a lot of sense. There are plenty of people in developing economies -- not just kids -- who would love to make $1 per hour monitoring a tractor. I wonder if remote control might not be both better and cheaper (in the short run, at least), than AI.
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But that would require rural areas getting good Internet bandwidth. Which will end up costing tax payers money, even if it is done by a private company, they will need some government assistance to make it profitable to put up a 5g tower for 3 customers.
While the 3 customers in the community may want that, that will be 3 votes for and the rest of the community wouldn't really care to spend their tax money for the benefit of 3 people.
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You're a little behind...Deere bought some CBRS spectrum back in 2020: https://www.deere.com/en/our-c... [deere.com]
They are looking at providing private wireless networking and equipment to production areas to assist with automation. I don't know if this'll ever pan out for them or if they'll succumb to built-out commercial 5G networks but they are surely going far down the IoT (Internet of Tractors) trail.
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But that would require rural areas getting good Internet bandwidth.
I think this is mostly not a problem. Farmland tends to be flattish, and cell towers have pretty long ranges in flat terrain, 10+ miles, which means you only need one tower for every 190,000 acres, which is about 400 average-sized farms. I find that farmland around me tends generally to have good 3G/4G cell coverage, even though I live in a mountainous rural area.
Also, as gwjgwj mentioned, Starlink is coming.
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Who needs automation when you have lots of children?
As the voice-activated TV remote in my family I certainly appreciated the new technology.
Neighbors had cordless remote with the 4 metal rods inside; we had the one with the long cord.
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Well played, sir.
simple proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:simple proposition (Score:5, Funny)
Can the owner repair it? Is the call centre function optional?
If a "tele-operator" using his 360-degree view spots you trying to use tools on the tractor, then they'll take control, drive the tractor to the nearest certified John Deere service center, and impound it.
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Re:simple proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, you're a fucking wanker. Farmers don't want to have to take it to a repair place and have to wait for official repair people to fix it. If it goes down in the field it needs to be fixed immediately, and in busy times of year waiting for the official repair guy while your 3rd or 4th down the list can kill you. Second, there are plenty of things on those pieces of equipment that shouldn't need an official repair asshole to fix. Third you insult farmers immensely. These people are virtually engineers through the school of hard knocks and what amounts to apprenticeship helping their families while growing up. They innovate and build machines you can't imagine. If it's not a computer they can probably fix it themselves or with help from local mechanics. If they need to call in the manufacturer, then it is a big problem. And not all farms that are large are corporate. There are still a significant number of private farms out there that aren't corporate. And I'm not talking 20 acres. There's no such thing in the Canadian prairies or the American great plains. The smallest someone will farm will be a quarter section which is 160 acres. More often than not they be farming a section or multiple sections. 20 acres would be a hobby farm unless you're talking dairy cows, and even then it would probably be on at least 80 acres.
Re:simple proposition (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely agree. John Deere has been fighting the right-to-repair issue on their tractors for years. The President's executive order [whitehouse.gov] signed this summer, along with the H.R.4006 - Fair Repair Act [congress.gov] probably have John Deere trying to do some PR recovery by upgrading the Automated Guidance that has been available for almost a decade [agriculture.com] into a fully autonomous self-driving machine. I'm not sure which self-driving vehicle is more frightening - a 2-ton Tesla surrounded by dozens of other drivers or a 14-ton tractor pulling a four-share plow in the middle of nowhere. More information on the self-driving tractor can be found here: https://www.farmprogress.com/e... [farmprogress.com]
Modern tractors already track each foot of the fields by GPS to log and transmit data on everything: moisture and nitrogen levels in soil; the exact placement of seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides; and, ultimately, the size of the harvest. When farmers pay $800,000 for a piece of farm equipment, they don't want to wait around for the dealer to come out and clear a trouble code so they can get back to work. https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
--
If you didn't go to bed hungry tonight, thank a farmer
Re:simple proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
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Have a relative who was a constractor with John Deere, and things were already set up so that you just sat in the air conditioned cab and did nothing but watch TV while the tractor did the work. You would set up GPS markers around the field, or nearby, and you can recognize them if you know what to look for. Being able to get out of the cab is new, and probably only because it's tested enough for safety to allow this.
I agree here also, if you have an $800,000 machine, you don't want to wait a monty for it
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Bottom line: John Deere is not the same company it was 50 years ago. Do a quick search on farm tractors. There’s literally hundreds of them that serve different niches. John Deere is obviously positioning itself to serve the top end of the mark
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"They are not, for the most part, small businesses. They are enterprise."
Even if they are actually enterprise as opposed to small farmers, having your tractor, or your harvester stop in the field for a faulty reading and having it fixed in a day is an inconvenience. Having to trailer it to the seller or having in-field repair in a week is a crisis.
Remember - if your tractor breaks every 70 working hours, then it lasts three or four days when you need it 10 or 20 for the "harvesting season", or the "plow and
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if your tractor breaks every 70 working hours, then ...
You should stop letting Cousin Wilbur "fix" it?
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"They are not, for the most part, small businesses. They are enterprise." Even if they are actually enterprise as opposed to small farmers, having your tractor, or your harvester stop in the field for a faulty reading and having it fixed in a day is an inconvenience. Having to trailer it to the seller or having in-field repair in a week is a crisis. Remember - if your tractor breaks every 70 working hours, then it lasts three or four days when you need it 10 or 20 for the "harvesting season", or the "plow and seed before the rains arrive" season. Farmers might have plenty of time when they could do nothing, but harvesting was a whole-day (from dawn till dusk) experience only before artificial lighting.
An actual "right to repair" setup would be to revert to 1940's tractors, eliminate the GPS, and any and all automation. Bare bones with points and generators.
I grew up with and around farmers. Such overwhelming smart people that when you get to the general public, its startling how dumb a lot of non-farmers are.
But if 1 person is supposed to be able to troubleshoot, analyze, remove and repair everything on modern tractors, we're going to have to help that process by making tractors that can be repaired
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The right to repair isn't about forcing everything to be repairable, it is about the basics. For example, my son broke the screen on his tablet, ordered a kit on eBay or Amazon, kit had a few tools, a gasket and a screen. He sat down in a couple of hours had fixed his tablet. Could have replaced his battery while in there too.
A lot of the times on a vehicle (or tractor), a sensor breaks, you should be able to unplug, unscrew, and replace the sensor and then reset the computer to recognize the new sensor. No
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The right to repair isn't about forcing everything to be repairable, it is about the basics. For example, my son broke the screen on his tablet, ordered a kit on eBay or Amazon, kit had a few tools, a gasket and a screen. He sat down in a couple of hours had fixed his tablet. Could have replaced his battery while in there too.
I've fixed iPhones that way. I would not let a child replace a battery. I made a battery safety video recently, and not only could a new battery be pinched and go Samsung on the kid, but that old battery could be the source of a lot of "fun" for the kid. High performance batteries are nothing to be trifled with.
This is the part that is odd to me. What exactly constitutes "right to repair"? I've repaired a lot of things. I've even repaired phones and tablets at the SMT level.
Which to me says that I have
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Every single time you only have only one option, this option will suck, because they will put no effort whatsoever in delivering the job if there's no risk of losing the consumers.
This apply to repair, to new products, to governments, to everything.
No ejector seat, no job done.
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No, these are not enterprises. Very often it's just a single family with maybe one or two regular hired hands. Some places are larger but there are vast numbers of single family operations.
Even if it was an enterprise, so what? I'm in an enterprise at work and boy is it annoying when Apple refuses to let you repair the Macs and instead take it to an approved center with minimum wage Geniuses, so the solution to hardware errors is to just buy a new one. A waste of time and money.
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Re: simple proposition (Score:1)
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Or maybe you can buy a second one which can repair the first one. At the end of each harvest they can service each other and hose the grit out of each other's mechanisms.
Ohhh, kinkee! The Farmers I grew up around had multiple tractors. Especially back then. They weren't as reliable as today's tractors.
Some of the RtR's get a little hung up on the repair issue and the time involved. If the tractor breaks down, it really doesn't matter who repairs it - it's down. So tractor number two enters the game. Probably not as cool as the main squeeze, but it fills in until the hottie is fixed. If you're supposed to be plowing, you need to plow, while the fixers fix.
Re: simple proposition (Score:1)
Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
The ultimate capitalist wet dream.
Re: Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
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its already happened. You cant afford to work with John Deere but you cant afford not to. You make your profit in government subsidies anyway
This is, BTW, the perfect example of the government subsidising the wrong thing. Horribly unenvironmental monoculture over huge fields (the bigger your field the longer you can leave your tractor working on its own). In most countries the farmers even get subsidised fuel, without any normal taxes as well. There's huge efficiency in the amount of food produced per worker, which is not what we actually need on a world scale since there's no lack of potential workers. At the same time there's corresponding h
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Self driving? (Score:3)
It isn't actually self driving. It's remote piloted by a 12yo Guatemalan child who works for tortillas.
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Nah. There are plenty of farm kids who enjoy doing driving tractors. I know I did!
Re: Overpaid (Score:2)
People in China will work for not being tortured.
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Same as American's in prison for smoking a joint, millions of workers avoiding spending years in solitary to compete with China's wages, just too bad the private prison companies take so much profit that even those dollar a day workers can't compete.
Killdozer! (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No thanks - ( geek turned new farmer here.) (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if you have a perfect piece of land under perfect conditions, then this may work for row crops.
My usecases are for livestock, bushhogging, and hay. There are too many variables that can come into play. Hell, if you get distracted even for a few seconds, disaster can easily follow.
The only row crops that I mess with is a tiny 5 acre lot that the church uses as a community food bank. Even then there is always an anomaly that requires constant attention so no one gets hurt or something is damaged.
Today, only good for clean row crops. (Score:2)
Tomorrow, they will do more and more. Eventually, there will be nothing left for you to do.
As a wealthy land owner, you can still monitor them with your cell phone while at your favorite resort.
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No way I am going to have a massive and expensive piece of equipment run unmanned. My family owns three tractors ranging from a small 20 horse ($18,000) to a 75HP ($60K.) Then add in the implements.
Now if you have a perfect piece of land under perfect conditions, then this may work for row crops.
My usecases are for livestock, bushhogging, and hay. There are too many variables that can come into play. Hell, if you get distracted even for a few seconds, disaster can easily follow.
Most excellent! We hear of people leaving (X) to farm, but few do it. Your case is definitely one of simplicity being better. What's more, you might even develop a sub-hobby of old tractors. A friend restores them and one of his tractors is an old McCormick Deering. Start on Gasoline, then wean onto Kerosene Hah! a different age, when gas was more expensive than kero.
Enjoy - it sounds like fun.
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According to the article, they are not unmanned. They are being driven by people in a 3rd world call center.
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Now if you have a perfect piece of land under perfect conditions, then this may work for row crops.
My usecases are for livestock, bushhogging, and hay. There are too many variables that can come into play. Hell, if you get distracted even for a few seconds, disaster can easily follow.
Sounds like you are not their target market (although many of the hay fields I've driven by don't seem to have too many challenging spots). I assume they're going to start with the perfectly flat and square wheat/corn fields you always see in food commercials.
The summary seemed to bury the lead. The win here is you can have the tractors running all night doing mundane, boring stuff you didn't have enough hours to get to. That should let you focus on the challenging bits during your limited awake hours. Addi
Call center...please hold (Score:2)
When the company's algorithms spot something unexpected, images from the cameras will be sent to "tele-operators" -- essentially a call center of third-party contractors who will manually check if the obstacle is a false positive or if the problem has resolved itself.
Having called a few call centers, I can just picture how this will go. The cameras spot a giant sink hole opening up in front of the tractor and phones home.
"Your call is very important to us. We will answer your call in the order it was received. Hold time is estimated to be about 15 minutes."
"Your call is very important to us."...
Finally, a script reader in a country on the other side of the world answers, and views the images, now showing the tractor stuck in the bottom of a pit.
"Thank you for calling to
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Re: Call center...please hold (Score:2)
Supervisor AI Bot: rinse and repeat.
and it will auto drive to the dealer for any servi (Score:2)
and it will auto drive to the dealer for any service
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and it will auto drive to the dealer for any service
In a straight line. Over the top of any cars, animals or tiny fleeing stick figures that happen to get in it's way whilst it searches for a replacement machine vision subsystem.
What could possibly go wrong⦠(Score:1)
There's only one problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
When push comes to shove, you don't own the machinery you rely on to keep your farm alive. They do.
Welcome to becoming a tenant on your own land.
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When push comes to shove, you don't own the machinery you rely on to keep your farm alive. They do.
Welcome to becoming a tenant on your own land.
Might as well say that about your car, your phone, or anything that you might have to go outside to fix.
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And I can fix my android phone screen on the repair shop in town vs a mac store 400km away
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Nah I don't own a Tesla I can get replacement parts for every single bolt in my car and install it myself thanks. And I can fix my android phone screen on the repair shop in town vs a mac store 400km away
Damn - you must have to fight the wimminfolk off! 8^)
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When push comes to shove, you don't own the machinery you rely on to keep your farm alive. They do.
I own virtually none of the gear I need to do my job either (networks, computers, web services). What's your point?
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That you didn't pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of renting the equipment for a few years.
And that you have a CHOICE. you can choose to buy your pc, your network os, your own VMs in the cloud, the fact that you don't is your choice.
Lets? (Score:2, Interesting)
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I'm pretty sure they make farmers leave the field, because they can't use or fix the bloody things.
All the farmers I know are happy to allow an expert to fix their tractors. They usually have a spare to use while their main squeeze is being fixed.
The meme of the poor downtrodden family farmer, struggleing to feed his family, victim of the Banks and John Deer is just that - a meme.
Our locals have nice tractors usually a latest model, and the other a model from some years back. That was even the case back in the early 1970's when I had a friend who live on his in law's farm FiL had a new and an old J
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All the farmers I know
Oh, well, that settles it then.
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All the farmers I know
Oh, well, that settles it then.
It's a data point of much more than 1 though. Seems I would know at least some who have exactly 1 tractor that they alone do all the work on it. They don't because it isn't a good economic model. You could repair that singular old tractor during the off season. But those silly old tractors tend to break down while you're needing them to do work.
There are times of year when things must happen. plowing, planting, harvest. Some of the insect control has to happen at specific times. And you aren't doing those
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You don't even have to RTFA, it is right there in the summary.
"We're not going from no tech all the way up to an autonomous machine," says Kovar. "John Deere's AutoTrac solution has taken the job of steering in the field out of the operators' hands for almost 20 years now." Today's announcement, she says, builds on these solutions.
This is evolutional for them, not revolutional. And, as was mentioned by a poster above, these things are used on field sizes starting at 60 acres and up. This isn't cruising downtown with traffic and stoplights, there is a order of magnitude difference in complexity, especially when you have GPS tracks to follow.
In short, the "liability" issue has been worked out decades ago.
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I did read it. My point is it has been a line follower, with machines tracked by GPS, for decades. They've added better obstacle identification and avoidance, along with remote human backup.
As far as "precluding someone from wandering in the wrong place", that's exactly what I was addressing. The number of things that wander in the wrong place in a 60+ acre field as opposed to a public roadway is significantly fewer and further between. That is, the likelihood of occurance is greatly reduced hence the risk
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Re: Liability? (Score:2)
John Deere doesn't need to do anything other than have a loud recording blasting: "Hey you kid in the field! Get off of my land. I'm warning you. Get away now or I will use the lethal force of this tractor to run you over!"
Repeat that over and over and then you really don't need a vision guidance system. You can just let it go where ever it wants to go with impunity.
I want one (Score:3)
I'll outfit it with a spraying system for weedkiller, and a loudspeaker that plays back the Dalek "Exterminate!".
Electrification (Score:2)
Re: Electrification (Score:2)
You don't know how easy this is:
1) Make EV farm equipment.
2) Have some idiot try to repeat batteries.
3) It "accidentally" blows up in their face, killing them. (Lithium batteries can explode.)
4) Huge news article sponsored by JD: "We must protect farmers by not allowing them to service their own battery."
Never let a disaster go to waste.
Re: Electrification (Score:2)
Repeat/repair. Damn you, immutable slashdot!
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Smartphone (Score:2)
Re: Smartphone (Score:2)
Helium will incentivise people to offer 5G in spots like this.
Sewing Machine or Camera? (Score:2)
Does it run Windows like my sewing machine, or Linux like my camera?
Now you can play sim farm for real (Score:2)
All from your computer, probably have to get up or of your seat to get the cows when they break out
how to kill right to repair (Score:2)
When the company's algorithms spot something unexpected, images from the cameras will be sent to "tele-operators"
Install tractor-as-a-service that requires an always on internet connection.
In the evil company olympics (Score:2)
Deere and Apple fight for the gold, aggressively preventing repair and demanding subscriptions for equipment that customers "own"
I really hope that an alternative arises
So, it's only a matter of time (Score:2)
Re:Yeah ok (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what right to repair means.
Most likely, you're not qualified to monkey with a cellphone either. But if the cellphone is designed for easy repair, you should be able to open it and replace subcomponents and parts to get a working phone again, and the phone's firmware won't intentionally bitch and moan that the parts aren't original, or the repair wasn't carried out by the manufacturer or something. The PCBs, batteriy, display... are technically beyond your ability to fix, but they can be replaced by the average Joe, or at least by a mildly competent repair shop.
The self-driving tractor may be as complicated as you can imagine, but if it's designed with right-to-repair in mind, you should be able to order and replace engine parts, but also the "brain box", steering control box... and John Deere should put out service notes or manuals to describe how the bits fit together.
But of course it's John Deere. So most likely what will happen if your tractor breaks down and you try to fix it is, you won't be able to order the replacement parts, they'll be impossible to work on without specialized tools, and you'll lose your warranty or you'll be sued by John Deere if you do manage to find the parts and attempt to work on the tractor anyway.
It's YOUR tractor, but in reality you're John Deere's bitch.
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The PCBs, batteriy, display... are technically beyond your ability to fix, but they can be replaced by the average Joe, or at least by a mildly competent repair shop.
The problem there, though, is if you replace the battery and display, then the PCB and battery, then the PCB and display ... if the replacement parts are actually cheap enough, you now have three working phones that you might even be able to sell at a profit.
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Then don't make the replacement parts cheap enough.
I'm okay to pay a (somewhat) inflated price for replacement parts. The issue is getting the stupid replacement parts and being able - and authorized - to replace them.
Look at the math: suppose I buy a $300 phone. If I order all the parts separately and put a new phone together and I end up with a $400 phone, it makes no sense to make new phones out of parts. But if I can get a replacement battery for the outrageous price of $50, I'm still $250 ahead because
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"I'm okay to pay a (somewhat) inflated price for replacement parts." ...), ...
The actual price for replacement parts could be very low. What is costing A LOT (and would reflect into the sell price) would be the logistics - purchase and storage of enough obsoleted spare parts for future use (which might be sold or might not), transportation costs (courier,
Basically for a $50 screen you'd need to pay the $50 value, then the $50 "I bought 100,000 screens and might only sell 50,000 of them", then the $20 for co
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"I'm okay to pay a (somewhat) inflated price for replacement parts." The actual price for replacement parts could be very low. What is costing A LOT (and would reflect into the sell price) would be the logistics - purchase and storage of enough obsoleted spare parts for future use (which might be sold or might not), transportation costs (courier, ...), ...
Basically for a $50 screen you'd need to pay the $50 value, then the $50 "I bought 100,000 screens and might only sell 50,000 of them", then the $20 for courier, then the $1 per the actual guy that takes the order, pack it and ship it, then ...
Buying the $500 value of all the components of a $800 phone could very well cost $1200.
this. This!
First we'd define a period in which every part of say, a cell phone or tractor would be replaceable. What - 10 years? 20 years?
Even now this is fraught with problems. Something that has a component with infant mortality problems can wipe out the replacement parts already available, the warehousing of them would cost, and then when the phone is discontinued and the parts are now worthless.
Then there is the battery. The size requirements plus the demand for battery life results in batteries tha
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I'm okay to pay a (somewhat) inflated price for replacement parts.
john deer really takes this to another level. They want slightly over $300 for a small pcb with one relay and a couple resistors soldered to it ("ignition module" for a small riding lawn mower).
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But most manufacturers chose the other way, officially for quality control, and unofficially to keep the market to themselves and simplify logistics. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Don't forget liability. If cousin Vinnie repairs Aunt Alice's phone battery, and the thing explodes, guess who gets sued. Did Vinnie pinch the thing? Did Samsung give explicit instructions on how to install a new battery without pinching? And heaven help Samsung if one of Aunt Alice's children are playing Candy Crush when the phone goes boom. Now probably, Vinnie screwed up but good. But that's not how the legal system works
I suspect that Government exercising force to make phones reparable to satisfy wh
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I suspect that Government exercising force to make phones reparable to satisfy what is an edge case of outliers happy, will have quite the increase in costs. Openable backs and the machining involved to make that happen - phones will get thicker and larger. Bezels will make a comeback. Parts will need to be standardized and a legal definition of the length of time a phone is guaranteed reparable will need to be made. 10 year? 25 years? Forever? Parts go bad, batteries don't last forever. So any replacement batteries must be able to plug in a new fresh batter at any point in that period.
That should give the European Union [cnet.com] some ideas on where to focus next. Seriously, they stood up to *Apple*.
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You're not qualified to improve the vision software on the tractor.
And you're also probably not qualified to optimize the fuel injection pump cycles (software) - even though people do this to cars by chip-modding.
Yet, your tractor will stop or go to "limp mode" if its cooling system loses pressure... or if the pressure sensor in the cooling system stops responding.
And while an analog, pressure-to-voltage sensor is easy to replace (and have the tractor in top notch condition), one that does encrypted communi
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Careful. With modern car MCUs being able to detect a "bulb is burned out" condition, you might just be giving car manufacturers an idea here. "Stop working until the dealership can reset the bulb is burned out condition."
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Careful. With modern car MCUs being able to detect a "bulb is burned out" condition, you might just be giving car manufacturers an idea here. "Stop working until the dealership can reset the bulb is burned out condition."
There are vehicles from the 1940's that the edge cases can buy.
Yeah, my vehicle tells me things. I have all of the temperatures and pressures and if something is wrong, it tells me. If my left rear tire is low, it tells me along with the pressure and that of all the other tires - it likes them all within a few (pick your system) of each other. It has a rear camera system with guiding lines that tell me where I'm going to end up if I keep the wheels in the present orientation. It has anti collision radar a
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The problem comes when the battery dies in your tires air valve, and it will die, does your car just light up an amber warning light and continue working while you fall back to using a pressure gauge or does it refuse to move due to the dead battery in the tire valve. Also does it require a factory technician to reset the tire pressure reader.
Having the pressure reader is nice, but it shouldn't be needed to start your vehicle.
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The problem comes when the battery dies in your tires air valve, and it will die, does your car just light up an amber warning light and continue working while you fall back to using a pressure gauge or does it refuse to move due to the dead battery in the tire valve. Also does it require a factory technician to reset the tire pressure reader. Having the pressure reader is nice, but it shouldn't be needed to start your vehicle.
Are you seriously suggesting that a tire pressure sensor will stop a vehicle dead?
Okay, I'll assume you are, so I'll answer. No, the Jeep continues to run, just as if it were a low tire. It lets you know which tire sensor is faulty.
And no, it requires no reset or trip to the dealer. I have a tire shop about a mile away who can replace the sensor. Take the old one out, put the new one in, check to see that it's registering correctly, and I drive off, fat dumb and happy.
And like I've said - if these new
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Okay, I'll assume you are, so I'll answer. No, the Jeep continues to run, just as if it were a low tire. It lets you know which tire sensor is faulty.
For now, the idea is that it should always be that way and may well take laws to stop the car manufacturers from changing things. In an ideal world, competition would take care of it but too often all companies move as a block to screw consumers to make more profit.
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I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing - on the previous car I changed maybe three or four bulbs in a decade. I'll take into account the tip about not touching the bulb
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The dictionary disagrees.
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Other Words from big
Adjective
bigly adverb
bigness noun