John Deere is rolling out what it calls its second-generation autonomous options, announced at CES 2025 this week in Las Vegas.
To be offered across agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping, Deere says its autonomous technology will integrate advanced computer vision, AI, and cameras to help machines navigate work environments.
“Our agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping customers all have work that must get done at certain times of the day and year, yet there is not enough available and skilled labor to do the work,” says Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere. “Autonomy can help address this challenge. That’s why we’re extending our technology stack to enable more machines to operate safely and autonomously in unique and complex environments. This will not only benefit our customers, but all of us who rely on them to provide the food, fuel, fiber, infrastructure, and landscaping care that we depend on every day.”
For agriculture, John Deere says it will offer a kit for the 9RX tractor featuring 16 individual cameras arranged in pods to enable a 360-degree view of the field. The advanced autonomy kit also calculates depth more accurately at larger distances, allowing the tractor to pull more equipment and drive faster, says John Deere.
The orchard tractors will also get an autonomy kit update for the 5ML series for air blast spraying. John Deere says the latest autonomy kit with added Lidar sensors will address dense canopies found in orchards. The initial machine will be offered with a diesel engine. A battery electric tractor of comparable size and capacity to existing diesel 5M/ML models on the market today will follow, the company says.
Check out the roll out at CES 2025 here.
John Deere says that machines set up with the autonomy kits are managed via John Deere Operations Center Mobile, the company’s cloud-based platform. By swiping left to right to start, the machine can be started once placed in the appropriate spot. Through the app, users also have access to live video, images, data and metrics, and the ability to adjust various factors like speed, the company says, adding that in the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, users will be notified remotely so they can make necessary adjustments.
