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26 EE|Times EUROPE — CES 2021
Automation, AI Sow the Seeds of Farming Future

to have uniform emergence of the crop so that all of the seedlings CAPTURING VALUE FROM AI
compete equally for sunlight and for the nutrients and moisture in the AI is beginning to deliver on its promise to provide real value, driven by
ground. The planter also controls downforce, or the amount of pressure recent advances in pattern-recognition algorithms and higher compu-
exerted on the soil, to firm the ground around the seed and provide tational resources. “Historically, we’ve been data-rich and insight-poor,
optimal soil-to-seed contact. “The end result of that equal competition but we’re quickly getting to the point where we can be data-rich and
for farmers is maximizing their productivity, maximizing their yield per insight-rich,” said Hindman. “It’s a really interesting time, as you’ve
plant,” said Hindman. got advances in computational capability coming into play; you’ve
Self-driving agricultural machinery is already here, but will auton- got advances in connectivity — 5G being one example, and satellite
omous tractors take the farmer out of the fields? Absolutely, answered connectivity being another one; and these advanced algorithms in the
Hindman, and “that future is much closer than it is far away.” AI space that are making it possible.”
In agriculture, self-driving is more than getting from Point A to In the past decade, John Deere has steadily increased investments
Point B and driving the tractor in a straight line. There is a lot of in AI technologies to implement its vision for the autonomous farm.
activity going on behind the vehicle, and “we have to make sure that In 2017, it acquired Silicon Valley-based computer vision startup Blue
we automate the planter functions appropriately and autonomously,” River Technology, which uses AI to interpret images captured by cam-
Hindman said. “The next step in the agricultural process is tillage. It’s eras installed in machinery and enable autonomous decision-making.
a complicated system, and we need to fully automate all of those func- At CES 2020, John Deere featured its AI-enabled R4038 sprayer.
tions before we can go completely autonomous. But that’s very close Based on Blue River’s image-recognition technology, the smart sprayer
and very near-term. I am confident I will see it in my lifetime.” can “discriminate between friend and foe in the field, weeds versus
crops that we want to preserve,” said Hindman. “That’s a great benefit
CONNECTING TO 5G to growers who have historically done a broadcast spraying operation
The advent of autonomous tractors is largely dependent on the broad ... and a great example of where vision [technology] is coming into play,
availability of secure and reliable wireless connectivity. Today, much coupled with a convolutional neural network.”
of John Deere’s equipment is connected through 4G and LTE cellular At this year’s CES, John Deere described how its new X9 combine
networks to the cloud, into what the company calls the John Deere series uses multiple AI-based systems to help farmers harvest crops
Operation Center. “Connectivity is really important, and the amount of more efficiently. “We’re using AI to monitor the grain flow through the
data that we push into the cloud in any given growing season gets up to combine, so we’re taking images of the grain through the combine and
100 megabytes per second,” said Hindman. adjusting settings automatically to maximize the amount of clean grain
5G will be central to precision agriculture, as it promises ultra-fast that goes into the grain tank and separate out the chaff or the things
speeds and real-time responses. “The lower-latency benefit opens some that you don’t want out of the back of the combine,” said Hindman. The
opportunities in machine control and automation that are difficult to X9 combine is equipped with video cameras, and AI algorithms analyze
do with higher latency,” said Hindman. “The higher-bandwidth capa- the images.
bility also gives an opportunity to start exploring
compute at the edge, so that most of the compute
is happening onboard the machines.”
Farming is a 24-7 job, and it’s critical to make
timely decisions. If farmers miss the perfect
planting window in their geographic area, the
result is percentage loss in their yield. Leveraging
5G capabilities will help farmers get the data to
and from the fields more accurately, quickly, and
efficiently. “Farmers have been collecting data
[from equipment with embedded intelligence] for
over 20 years,” Kovar noted. “They started mon-
itoring and measuring the yield per acre of land
and got to understand the relative productivity
of different parts of their fields.” How well is the
planter running? How many seeds has it placed in
the ground? How to optimize agricultural inputs?
Today, data flows to the cloud-based system, and farmers can analyze AI is also used for predictive maintenance. The information collected
it on the go via a mobile app on their phone. “No matter where farmers and analyzed aboard the harvester or the planter helps to predict when
are, they can see what’s happening with their fleet, all the inputs and a failure might occur. “It gives the owners of the equipment fore-
outputs of their operation, right in the palm of their hand,” said Kovar. warning when something might happen so they can take care of it, as
There is a tremendous amount of variability and unpredictability in opposed to having it impact their business in, for example, the 10-day
farming. Weather patterns are a moving target, and there might be three window when they need to plant,” said Hindman.
or four different soil types within a single field. Farmers need to have AI-empowered sensors are changing the way farmers plant, spray,
their data at their fingertips so that they can coordinate their plan of and harvest. Today, John Deere is using a vast array of sensors, from the
attack based on the history of their farm and their ability to interpret it. seed sensor on the planter that counts the seeds and checks how they
Farmers have control over their data, so they can determine who are going into the ground to the near-infrared sensor on the harvester
has access to it (for example, agronomists, equipment dealers, seed that assesses the nutrient value of the food for animals.
companies, and field technicians). “We are committed to making sure The company said it expects to enrich the sensor suite by investing
their data is secure and that farmers are always in control of what’s predominantly in camera technologies, computer vision, and machine
happening with their data,” said Kovar. “Over 184 connected software learning. ■
companies are using APIs to push and pull data from the John Deere
Operation Center any time the farmer allows it.” Anne-Françoise Pelé is editor-in-chief of EE Times Europe.

FEBRUARY 2021 | www.eetimes.eu