Next-Gen Software and Hardware Digitally Connects Tractors and Farm Tools
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – February 14, 2024 — To enable a step-change advancement in agricultural robotics, Agtonomy, a company specializing in advanced autonomous solutions, announced today the first-of-its-kind smart farm task ecosystem that digitally and autonomously connects self-driving tractors with farm tools and implements to create greater efficiency and sustainability in the field.
“For autonomy to bring value to agriculture, we must think about tractors and farm tools like farmers do. Together,” said Tim Bucher, Agtonomy CEO and co-founder. “While other companies have designed individual components of farm robotics, either self-driving tractors or autonomous implements, Agtonomy has connected the digital dots between machines to seamlessly and autonomously execute tasks while keeping farmers in control.”
Combined with Agtonomy’s TeleFarmerTM tele-guidance software and services app and through partnerships with leading equipment manufacturers, including Thiessen Tillage Equipment, OnTarget Spray Systems, KCI Manufacturing and Clemens Technologies, the Smart Farm Task Ecosystem gives farmers the advanced computing and AI-software and the farm-tested hardware needed to remotely plan and autonomously execute daily field tasks in orchard, vineyard, berry and specialty crop production.
“Unlike driving a car from point A to point B, no farmer goes ‘tractoring.’ Farmers use equipment for very specific, precise tasks that are becoming more challenging in today’s environment,” Bucher said. “By working with industry partners farmers know and trust on both the tractor and implement side, we can more rapidly scale a complete autonomous solution for farmers today.”
Agtonomy’s Smart Farm Task Ecosystem launched with four hardware solutions:
- Smart Take-Off (STO)TM – an easily-attached plug connector that provides power and data transfer between the tractor and tool implement attachments, replacing the industry-standard purely mechanical power take-off (PTO). Significantly more energy efficient than PTO’s, the STO is also inherently safer and easier to use.
- Smart Toolbar – a generic, sensor-enabled intelligent toolbar that can carry numerous different types of smart weeding, mowing and cultivation tools. The smart toolbar captures and communicates information between the tractor and tools, enabling real-time response in a three-dimensional performance, such as automatically adjusting tool heights and widths to accommodate for plant spacing and terrain fluctuations.
- Smart Implement Sensors (SIS) – sensors placed on tools that collect data and communicate with the tractor’s autonomous navigation system to modulate its speed, power or other metrics. SIS can be placed directly on existing implements or on the tractor itself.
- Smart Sprayers – spray nozzles that communicate with data sources, adjusting application rates to spot needs, allowing the ability to reduce or increase spray rates as the tractor moves based on computer vision-collected data such as canopy density, weed pressure or disease hotspots.
“Working with Agtonomy means equipment manufacturers like us can leverage their advanced computer science, engineering and robotic systems with the trusted brand and proven design of our farm tillage product line for solutions that are exponentially better than either of us could provide alone,” said Ryan Thiessen, owner and operator of Thiessen Tillage Equipment headquartered in Canada.
The development of this ecosystem follows Agtonomy’s partnership strategy aimed at rapidly scaling agricultural autonomy and robotic solutions for the greatest value to farmers. In January, Doosan Bobcat unveiled an Agtonomy software-embedded electrified autonomous tractor, following Agtonomy and OnTarget’s debut of an all-electric, autonomous electrostatic smart sprayer last September.
The company plans to demonstrate this new ecosystem technology through farmer pilot programs, on-farm events and at upcoming trade shows, including the World Ag Expo.
About Agtonomy
Agtonomy is a California-based, farmer-founded software, services and technology company enabling autonomy to solve agriculture’s most immediate and pressing problems, including labor scarcity, climate change and shrinking profit margins. Partnering within the equipment value chain for rapid commercialization, Agtonomy embeds their ‘smarts’ into brand-name tractors and implements, digitally transforming machinery into a remote-operated, task-driven ecosystem for safe, equitable, profitable and climate-smart agriculture. To learn more, visit www.agtonomy.com
