Driverless Electric Robot Tractors are Here, Powered by NVIDIA AI Chips (theverge.com) 82
NVIDIA is proud of its role in the first commercially available smart tractor (which began rolling off the production line Thursday). Monarch Tractor's MK-V "combines electrification, automation, and data analysis to help farmers reduce their carbon footprint, improve field safety, streamline farming operations, and increase their bottom lines," according to NVIDIA's blog.
NVIDIA's been touting the ability to accelerate machine learning applications with its low-power Jetson boards (each with a system on a chip integrating an ARM-architecture CPU) , and they write that the new tractor "cuts energy costs and diesel emissions, while also helping reduce harmful herbicides, which are expensive and deplete the soil." Mark Schwager, former Tesla Gigafactory chief, is president; Zachary Omohundro, a robotics Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, is CTO; Praveen Penmetsa, CEO of Monarch Tractor, is an autonomy and mobility engineer. Penmetsa likens the revolutionary new tractor to paradigm shifts in PCs and smartphones, enablers of world-changing applications. Monarch's role, he said, is as the hub to enable smart implements — precision sprayers, harvesters and more — for computer vision applications to help automate farming....
Tapping into six NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX SOMs (system on modules), Monarch's Founder Series MK-V tractors are essentially roving robots packing supercomputing. Monarch has harnessed Jetson to deliver tractors that can safely traverse rows within agriculture fields using only cameras. "This is important in certain agriculture environments because there may be no GPS signal," said Penmetsa. "It's also crucial for safety as the Monarch is intended for totally driverless operation."The Founder Series MK-V runs two 3D cameras and six standard cameras.
In one pilot test a tractor lowered energy costs (compared to a diesel tractor) by $2,600 a year, according to NVIDIA's blog post. And the tractor collects and analyzes crop data daily, so hopes are high for the system. Monarch has already raised more than $110 million in funding, reports the Verge: Many tractors out in farming fields have semiautonomous modes but largely require a driver to be seated. They also mostly run on diesel gas, so the MK-V, with its fully electric design and driver-optional smarts, is claiming it's the first production model of its kind.
NVIDIA's been touting the ability to accelerate machine learning applications with its low-power Jetson boards (each with a system on a chip integrating an ARM-architecture CPU) , and they write that the new tractor "cuts energy costs and diesel emissions, while also helping reduce harmful herbicides, which are expensive and deplete the soil." Mark Schwager, former Tesla Gigafactory chief, is president; Zachary Omohundro, a robotics Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, is CTO; Praveen Penmetsa, CEO of Monarch Tractor, is an autonomy and mobility engineer. Penmetsa likens the revolutionary new tractor to paradigm shifts in PCs and smartphones, enablers of world-changing applications. Monarch's role, he said, is as the hub to enable smart implements — precision sprayers, harvesters and more — for computer vision applications to help automate farming....
Tapping into six NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX SOMs (system on modules), Monarch's Founder Series MK-V tractors are essentially roving robots packing supercomputing. Monarch has harnessed Jetson to deliver tractors that can safely traverse rows within agriculture fields using only cameras. "This is important in certain agriculture environments because there may be no GPS signal," said Penmetsa. "It's also crucial for safety as the Monarch is intended for totally driverless operation."The Founder Series MK-V runs two 3D cameras and six standard cameras.
In one pilot test a tractor lowered energy costs (compared to a diesel tractor) by $2,600 a year, according to NVIDIA's blog post. And the tractor collects and analyzes crop data daily, so hopes are high for the system. Monarch has already raised more than $110 million in funding, reports the Verge: Many tractors out in farming fields have semiautonomous modes but largely require a driver to be seated. They also mostly run on diesel gas, so the MK-V, with its fully electric design and driver-optional smarts, is claiming it's the first production model of its kind.
electric vs diesel not man vs AI (Score:3)
The estimated $2k+ savings was diesel tractor with a man driving vs a purely electric tractor with an AI driving.
The savings were almost certainly about the cost of fuel vs electricity, not the AI's effectiveness
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Yeah, it looks like an acreage tractor.
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Part of the problem would be determining what tasks the tractor could be used for. The article describes growth analysis and pesticide spraying, but not much else. Tasks a normal tractor would be used for:
Plowing - not a good fit. The ability to keep a straight line might be within the vision and GPS guidance capabilities, but not the ability to handle unexpected problems, rocks, mud, weather, etc. If you've ever tried to plow a field, you'd realize all the minute-to-minute adjustments that are made to
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Part of the problem would be determining what tasks the tractor could be used for. The article describes growth analysis and pesticide spraying, but not much else. Tasks a normal tractor would be used for:
The vision part and going from field to field is big, but most of the rest is already being done by GPS and autosteer and has been since 2013ish.
Plowing - not a good fit. The ability to keep a straight line might be within the vision and GPS guidance capabilities, but not the ability to handle unexpected problems, rocks, mud, weather, etc. If you've ever tried to plow a field, you'd realize all the minute-to-minute adjustments that are made to keep the furrows straight and where you want them. Large tractor with 21-share plow [youtube.com]
Might? GPS and Auto Steer can put a tractor and implement between the rows of corn to spray or till between the rows.
They will have NO problem keeping in a straight line and adjusting as needed to compensate for rocks and such.
Rocks will happen, many large plows are spring trip so they should self reset.
Mud will require that the person managing it know the field an
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Not disagreeing with you: that is a decent functional analysis.
Most of that and more is implicit in the physical size and hp/torque of the machine. A "normal" tractor has a 3 point hitch and PTO on the back and a loader or a quick attach system on the front; what the machine can do is determined almost totally by the machine size.
The model shown is a large acreage tractor or small farm utility tractor from what I see. Hauling a round bale of hay would likely be a challenge but there are lots of jobs it w
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Per their website "The diesel tractor and the Monarch Tractor alternated rows until the mowing operation was completed, approx. 7.25hrs of run time finishing with 24% battery charge remaining."
From their spec sheet:
Peak Motor Power 70HP (52kW)
Rated Motor Power 40HP (30kW)
Run Time est. 14 Hours
Charge time with an 80A charger: 5-6 hours
Charge time with an 40A charger: 10-12 hours
9F/3R transmission (3 speeds, plus reverse in 3 ranges)
40 PTO HP
19.8 Peak GPM, 12 constant GPM
1650#/750KG 3 point capacity at 24" be
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Yeah, it's a large acreage tractor or small farm tractor with appropriately limited capabilities and is comparable to a similar sized diesel.
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Yeah, it's a large acreage tractor or small farm tractor with appropriately limited capabilities and is comparable to a similar sized diesel.
It is also comparable to many of the narrow vineyard/orchard tractors (which it looks like a market that they may targeting).
Those are generally mowing, tilling, spraying, etc inside rows of vines or trees that are planted at 8-12 feet on center so the small size is a benefit.
When it comes time to spray fruit trees you may only be able to spray at night (needs to be dry and calm) and being able to have one person at the spray shed refilling sprayer tanks while keeping an eye on up to 8 tractors would be hug
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The estimated $2k+ savings
TFS said "energy costs". The article actually said "annual expenses". So it's not really clear on whether the savings includes putting a human operator out of work or not.
However, autonomous diesel tractors exist. As do all the other "smart" features attributed to the Monarch Tractor. They were not so clear on whether the cost analysis accounted for the equipment down time during charging.
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The spec sheet says run time of 10-12 hours. So it sounds like "run it all day, charge it all night" would be the duty cycle.
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If you click through to the actual pilot program they specifically state the $2k saving was calculated based entirely upon how much diesel fuel was used versus how much of the battery was drained.
The calculation was entirely the cost of diesel fuel vs electricity, nothing more.
Price vs operations (Score:4, Informative)
The price ($68,000) is double that of a John Deere compact tractor with the same rating (40HP). At $2,600 savings per year, it would take 13 years to make up the difference. Sounds like you want to work the heck out of it to get a payback in a reasonable time.
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Equipment duty cycle has a profound and not always predictable effect on machine reliability and longevity. Farm equipment is often used heavily over a brief period and then left dormant for months; Teslas are used lightly but regularly. It is hard to say whether the electric car experience offers accurate insight to farm equipment reliability.
There is along history of experienced engine manufacturers trying and failing to build reliable railroad locomotive power units. Designs that work well in other
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Depends if it means you can employ fewer people.
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California is on the cusp of regulating diesel farm equipment emissions. They will otherwise become a major source of ground-level pollution in the state as we switch over to EVs, and have already eliminated most of the real old stinkers. (I still see a lot of them up here in Humboldt, but in more developed counties they are less common. The difference is more marked every time I visit civilization.) This will gradually spread to other states — there are states that are more dependent on agricultural
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I think battery swapping will have to be a part of the design and built into the equipment operation and cost. Otherwise most heavy agriculture applications can not be electrified.
Forget the forklift; I see a specialized battery swapper hauled in by an EV pick me up truck. 10 minute coffee/refueling break and back at it.
Pure press release (Score:2)
Autonomous tractors have been around for a long time.
There's a huge opportunity here (Score:2)
If Monarch and NVIDIA make a point of allowing owners to repair and update their tractors and software, they'll have a long lineup of customers...many of whom are desperately hoping for a chance to tell John Deere to go f^ck itself with a rusty scythe.
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Nice (Score:2)
But it would be cool if it also supported remote operation with a VR headset.
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What on earth do you think you'd gain by adding a VR headset?
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Plants. I'd gain more plants on earth if they added VR capability. I could control and watch the tractor do its thing while I do my thing in my polycule in the Bahamas.
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Plants. I'd gain more plants
What a load of nonsense. Have you thought this through for even a second?
You don't need VR to "control and watch" a tractor remotely. If anything, VR would make things more difficult and less efficient.
One more time: What on earth do you think you'd gain by adding a VR headset?
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You don't need VR for that. VR is the worst of all possible options. It will make the entire process more difficult and less efficient. It's an unimaginably stupid idea.
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It wouldn't actually be VR, but having a HMD with tracking would not be a bad thing. In particular, it would allow operation in outdoors locations... like beaches.
No GPS? (Score:1)
This is important in certain agriculture environments because there may be no GPS signal
Curious. Polar-region farming? Very dense tree cover? Underground?
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When farming downtown in large cities, the tall buildings can interfere...
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This is a compact-size tractor (40 HP). They commonly get used for landscape work. A downtown municipal park might well blocked by buildings, but even mowing around office parks might have problems. Midwest field crop tractors run larger, up to 600 HP.
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Perhaps the plan is just to use more, smaller devices. If you're not paying an operator, then you can have more vehicles, because operators are expensive. Then if you have downtime on a vehicle, production doesn't stop completely. As farming moves ever further into corporate hands (where it mostly is already) they're going to want to eliminate the labor costs.
Re: No GPS? (Score:1)
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Holy shit, that's stupid.
If you have something to say, then spit it out. If that's the best you can do, then why are you here? Just for the fuckery?
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You are right to be offended as that was a rude response but more smaller tractors to replace a single large tractor is a non-starter.
Think about it.
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No but this is a toy by farm standards. If we are to replace diesel on the farm, this thing is not even close to a solution. It is interesting but until they get serious it is just a sidebar.
Re: No GPS? (Score:2)
Wow, supercomputers that farm (Score:2)
Monarch's Founder Series MK-V tractors are essentially roving robots packing supercomputing. Monarch has harnessed Jetson to deliver tractors that can safely traverse rows within agriculture fields using only cameras.
The Cray-2 that I helped administer at NASA LaRC back in the mid '80s just sat there. :-)
I often encouraged it to get out, get some sunshine, but no. It was happy with its little waterfall -- I mean Fluorinert-fall. Don't think it would have even been interested in farming.
5G (Score:1)
where are these fields without GPS? (Score:2)
>> agricultural environments may not have GPS signals
Are they going underground?
Myth of the hard-working farmer (Score:2)
Could plant it in one day
Could spray herbicide in one day
Could harvest in one day
Could till in one day
So unlike trucking this automation does not save a lot of work and also begs the question
what is the farmer doing all those other days he's not in the field?
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hahaha "farmer"
Look, the farmer still exists today, but he's going away. The number of farmers has been decreasing as the sizes of farms has been increasing [usda.gov]. These farms are still privately owned by farmers, but the trend is towards consolidation. Further, the farmers' activities are very closely controlled. There are requirements placed on them by the conglomerates they sell to — these gigantic farms aren't selling directly, they're not going to the farmer's market, it takes a big company to even han
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Could plant, Could spray herbicide, Could harvest, Could till in one day
If they can do each of these 'in a day' then they're probably not doing very well on this income alone.
what is the farmer doing all those other days he's not in the field?
Likely working their day job so they can afford their expensive farming hobby.
Bogus economics (Score:1)
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A savings of $2,600/year means the yearly licensing costs will gradually increase until that "savings" figure is in the negative.
That's when the government mandates kick in to be sure you don't get any funny ideas.
automated retrieval (Score:1)