During the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association Fall Convention in New Orleans, Chris Hunsaker, CEO and founder of Acuitus Ag, shared an outlook for autonomy and AI in ag. He says there are 4 pathways emerging as ag companies look to apply AI into their machinery and equipment. 

“So there are a lot of ways that AI applies in ag, and in particular, we see four paths emerging as companies inside the industry are looking for ways to apply AI into their machinery and equipment. And it's tied with automation. And so we see the OEMs, the major OEMs investing in their own end-to-end solutions. So purpose built for their machines. So like a John Deere, for example, they have an autonomous solution that puts cameras on the tractors and will put some sensors on the tillage equipment and the system is fully autonomous. So that's one path that people are starting to go down, but there are others as well, where in some cases the OEMs will partner with other companies and they'll bring some things to market. So in that case, one example is Kubota and Bobcat partnering with a company called Agtonomy. Agtonomy is a startup and Agtonomy has the intelligence behind the automation, but the hardware and things are actually integrated by the OEM.”

“And that's how they bring the fully autonomous solution for the tractor to market and also some implement capabilities there too. Those are primarily driven by cameras as well as some other sensors. You can have LiDAR, you can have radar. Depending on what the use case is, there's a lot of choices that have to be made. The third path is a third party actually coming in with the whole solution. So one example is Kingman out of California. They have an autonomy kit that goes on the tractor that will also have some implementation or integration as well with it. And the OEMs don't necessarily have anything, any involvement in that. It's a retrofittable kit that's provided by the company, the startup. And then the final path is we're seeing a lot of purpose built. So ground up, the whole machine is different. And IGEN is a good example of this.”

“They're a startup that is based in Seattle and they have a mechanical weeder that, if you look at it, looks like an engineering drafting table because it has a big solar panel on the top. It's driven with electric motors, weighs about 200 pounds and it's capable of hoeing in between the rows and also in the row. And it can see the difference between weeds and the crop and it knows what it's supposed to remove. It can run in the light, it can run in the dark, but it's a very purpose designed solution that the form factor is totally different. So interesting things are happening and it's going to be really interesting to see how it kind of converges as time goes on too.”

Hunsaker will also be speaking at the Precision Farming Dealer Summit in Indianapolis, Jan 11-12. To learn more about the event and to register, visit PrecisionSummit.com. 

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