The time for autonomous agriculture is now, says VNC Automotive

An unprecedented combination of factors including labour shortages, a growing global population, and high levels of connectivity have come together to make now the ideal time to deploy full autonomy in our fields, according to Cambridge-based software company VNC Automotive.

With modern tractors containing more processing power than it took to fly to the moon, the company says that agricultural machinery is now so advanced that much of the groundwork required to enable autonomy has already been laid.

"Farming, to most people, is something that happens on the other side of a hedgerow," said Tom Blackie, Founder and CEO, VNC Automotive.

"The reality is the journey from seed to supermarket is a long and tortuous one, and with demands to both increase productivity and work in more environmentally sustainable ways, it’s only going to become more challenging. We believe autonomy is key to the delivery of that."

Read more: Tackling the challenges of greenhouse robotics

VNC specialises in automotive connectivity and claims to have already connected "hundreds of thousands of tractors globally". This, it says, can make it a crucial part of the increasingly technological direction the agricultural sector is taking.

Autonomy in farming is not a new concept. GPS-enabled automated steering systems, such as John Deere’s AutoTrac, have been guiding tractors and self-propelled farm machinery for almost two decades. The systems have led to the reduced use of pesticides, increased crop yields and reduced plant damage through finding optimised paths across fields.

 "These systems have come a long way since their inception two decades ago, and now offer accuracy down to just a couple of centimetres. Their widespread adoption across the globe means they’ve earned the trust of farmers everywhere, and today more than 70% of the crop acreage in North America is farmed using these systems. In Australia, it’s more than 90%," said Blackie.

The VNC chief also points to other developments in connectivity that have made farming more efficient such as Implement Automation, which allows towed machinery to communicate with the tractor, and Machine Sync, whereby a combine harvester can control a field full of tractors to coordinate unloading.

Read more: RuralDorset project to introduce 5G agri-robots

More recent improvements in machine vision and learning systems have brought about new technologies such as See & Spray, which automatically distinguishes between weeds and cultivated plants, individually treating each with either a targeted pesticide or fertiliser.

These developments have brought with them a new strategy for farm management known as Precision Agriculture. Rather than farming a field as a single unit, this approach allows decisions to be made about individual plants, which VNC says is better for the crops, the environment and is more cost-effective. Instead of spraying an entire field with chemicals, which often run off into waterways, precisely measured doses can be delivered directly to the plants that need them.

Precision Agriculture generates vast amounts of data, much of which is stored in the cloud. Once there, it can be used "to support a growing wave of new functionality, from mapping crop yields and soil conditions within a field, to performing crop simulations to select the best planting strategies".

With most modern tractors being already equipped with the hardware necessary for full self-driving, as well as a permanent data connection, Blackie says it is a short step to the world of full autonomy.

"We’re already having these conversations with our clients," he said, "and recent acquisitions by some of the biggest players in the industry point to this happening sooner rather than later."

"While there’s understandable reticence surrounding self-driving passenger cars, if a tractor gets lost in a field it might end up in a ditch or a hedge, not driving the wrong way up the M1. Many of the challenges for autonomous cars stem from the need to map the precise location of every obstacle, some of which, particularly other cars, are constantly moving. But in agriculture, we already know where everything is, even down to the pinpoint location of each individual plant."

Read more: Brussels presents plan to boost organic farming

Blackie is also quick to point out that agricultural autonomy is not about replacing the farmer. Intelligent machines, whether accompanying a lone worker or deploying themselves can free up the farmer to deal with other matters. 

He points to situations where the time window for planting may only be open for a few days. In these cases, the ability to work quickly and precisely can have a major impact on productivity for the rest of the year.

"Hundreds of thousands of connected machines out there, collecting data day in, day out for more than 20 years means there’s a tremendous amount of learning that’s already been done. Now it’s time to capitalise on that investment."

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