autonomous (self driving) farm vehicle

remembering a recent series about self driving cars, which was not receiving a positive response, I thought I should provide this news tidbit. Case IH introduced their Autonomous Concept Vehicle at a farm show in Boone, Iowa. Equipped with cameras,radar and GPS allowing a farmer to remotely monitor planting and harvesting via a Tablet. A no cab, 419 HP -farm thing-? with a top speed of 31 MPH. Retired and in my 70's, such info is meaningless except as a novelty interest. But, I expect the big mega farms will put them to use as they become available.

i can see where it would be a huge labor saving idea, but my thought is what happens if the computer stopps working? then you have these huge , heavy pieces of equipment wandering around without a driver, that brings back images of that 70's c grade movie maximum overdrive lol

Someone on here posted about it last week, including a vidio link to the intro by CNH.
Loren

didn't they used to set up tractors back in the 1960's and 70's that would plow in a circle with no driver? I think they had a low oil and high temp switch that would shut off the fuel if need and had a bumper that either shut the fuel off or disengaged the clutch.

not really autonomous but probably worked.

i think i saw that picture on here some time ago.

I like driving my truck, car, tractor etc.. so not interested. THE ONLY thing I would be interested in is somehow getting the tractor to be voice activated to stop, go, turn, etc. That would be handy as heck or my pickup even when Im picking up hay bales.. then it could be a one man show.. lol Kinda wished I could teach the dog to drive but worried he may run me over if not completely happy with me that day..

I think an autonomous farm tractor makes a whole lot more sense and is safer/more practical than self driving cars which I think is a pipe dream. Farm tractors work in an enclosed, known area with fairly simple maneuvers. However, they certainly won't be any cheaper and as long as its an option that a 2nd hand buyer can disable or remove them, I think they'll be great.

As for cars, I don't see how programmers will be able to program for every event where a human makes a split second judgement (bike or deer in the road? swerve instead of stopping?, etc). Just on the radio the other day, the automotive writer mentioned that self-braking cars were causing problems in car washes. As soon as the brushes came in front, they slammed on the brakes. :roll: He described the procedure to disable them on a Mercedes (remove start/top button, insert key in its place, press on brake,stand on 1 foot, blah,blah,blah). He said the procedure WAS in the owner's manual.....but it's over 500 pages long.

We use a highly computerized surfacing machine on the rail road and believe me,it's fine till it malfunctions.when that happens ,which is often everything shuts down except propulsion.we get a lot of work done with the older limit switch machines though.

I'd be worried about a few things. Obvious is safety. But if all the bugs get worked out, what happens ten years down the road and the computer software is outdated. (Can't replace a switch or glitch)....nobody would be able to help you with your $1.5Million machine then.

Just my thoughts.
When you think of all the safety's it would require and all the things that could potentially shut it down I think you would be spending the whole day driving back and forth to the field to reset it.

A person takes for granted how many things your eyes, ears and seat of your pants monitor when running equipment in the field.

Trees fall, animals wander about, mud on sensors, seed runs plug up, tires go flat, things fall and break off the list is endless.

Even if all of that is overcome you would still be running back and forth with seed, fertilizer and fuel in the spring and emptying grain carts and trucks in the fall.

Not saying they will never figure it out but it sounds like right now you will have to glue your face to a monitor and babysit the thing.
If you are going to do that then why not just park your butt in it and get some fresh air.

Also reminds me of the Clint Walker movie about a "D9er" that had a mind of its own. Anyone remember that one? Now that I mention it I wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Did a little checking and found this, not sure if it's the one I was thinking of.

When you consider what the average farmer is paying themselves an hour, that computer has to work cheap!

As a young bachelor about 1970 I once went to Sears to buy three plates and three cups and three saucers. Gonna learn t o cook. Gal said, We have this new stuff, called Melamine, and it's unbreakable, UNBREAKABLE!! Guaranteed. FOREVER! Watch this!! She hauled off and threw a plate down, and it shattered into 816 thousand shards. Long silence. I bought some Fiesta ware.

If I'm a computer hacker or write viruses, I'm chomping at the bit, waiting for the day to come that automobiles, vehicles and anything or everything else becomes computer hackable GPS dependent. The next frontier for me would be my bad stuff bounced off of satellites right into...

Don't think it can't be done? We did some stuff to a middle eastern country a couple of years ago, the very next day in retaliation they shut down one of our three largest banks for a couple of days and admitted it. That kind of stuff happens every day. A week or two ago, twice in one week shutdown some of the largest social media sites. Imagine if some of that technology gets into the hands of people that don't just want to screw with us, but much, much worse.

Well, if and when that day happens, Amish buggies will still be operating just fine.

Mark

Your thoughts are the same as what I had when I viewed the CNH's autonomous tractors at Husker
Harvest Days in September. To me automating a vehicle to drive down the road would be simple
compared to all the little things that come up when operating a tractor and implement in the
field. And, of course, an automated vehicle would still have a person right there to deal with
situations that make the computer throw up its hands in failure. I was especially curious that
they displayed the CaseIH tractor with a planter which is the implement that requires the most
monitoring from the operator. They also talked about how the tractor could navigate on "private
roads" to and from the field. How many of us have fields that are accessible without traveling
on any public roads? To me the thought of automating farm equipment isn't giving the "super
computer" that is located between the operator's ears enough credit. I think of all the
unexpected scenarios that are encountered when operating farm equipment in the field and how each
one requires different responses - to program a computer to deal with all of them safely and
efficiently would be a monumental task. My "real job" involves engineering and designing farm
equipment so naturally I am intrigued by the latest technologies but automomous operation in the
field isn't something I foresee becoming practical for a very long time.

When viewing the CaseIH autonomous tractor at the show I was approached by one of the numerous
people (all of whom happened be very attractive women, probably hired from a modeling agency)
circulating the display surveying the folks who showed interest. Most of the questions on her
iPad that she asked me were more about what the concept told me about CNH as a company, not
directly about the machine I was looking at. I got the impression that the whole concept is more
to promote CNH as cutting-edge and innovative and not necessarily that they believe this is what
we'll all be farming with in the near future.

One of the local farmers way back tried that out,he used to plow with an old Fordson in the Winter to help the day go by he'd sip a little 'shine.He used a pull type plow with the trip rope around his waist,the plow hit a rock unlatched and pulled him off the seat and tractor headed to the fence row about buried itself before he got down to it.

Had a neighbor had what he called his killdozer.

It was a dinky little thing.