The future of agriculture could rest with self driving tractors

With all the talk of autonomous cars from Tesla's master plan to take on Uber to the legacy automotive players like Ford and Audi pursuing the self-driving agenda, there's little talk on self-driving vehicles outside of the consumer universe. Until now.

1 Sep 2016

Image Source: FG Insight - New Holland T8 NHDrive

New Holland, an agricultural and construction equipment manufacturer, gives the world a peek into the future of autonomous machinery which could transform the future of agriculture: an autonomous tractor.

The concept tractor, NHDrive, is Power Ranger blue and looks like your standard, run-of-the-mill farming tractor. But it’s more than that. The NHDrive concept tractor is an unmanned, fully autonomous tractor that can be monitored and controlled by the farmer’s desktop or tablet, giving them the ability to control the tractor or access data from different locations. Farmers have the freedom to check fields from one location while tending to another field any time, day or night.

Pre-mapped private paths help the NHDrive concept tractor easily move around the farm. From his desktop or tablet, the farmer can give instructions on where to go around the farm. Once it has reached its destination, the tractor will either begin its task or work in a convoy on command.

Read the full article on Agri Africa.