WESTERN PRODUCER — Even as some major original equipment manufacturers begin to dip their toes into the autonomous equipment segment, a number of start-ups offering add-on autonomous systems have already hit the ground running.
Iowa-based Sabanto is one of the companies that is now offering a commercially available system.
That small firm has been in operation for about five years, and it recently announced it will now offer an add-on autonomy package for a third tractor model, the John Deere 5100E.
It had previously sold kits for Kubota M5 and Fendt 700 Series tractors.
Mike Burdick, sales director at Sabanto, said it is actively working on expanding the number of tractor models on which its system will work. Notably, John Deere tractors figure prominently in that expanding group.
“Our decisions on what tractors and what brands we apply our kits to is market driven,” he said.
And the initial focus on Deere tractors is the result of customer feedback the company garnered when displaying its system at agricultural trade shows.
‘We were really turning heads,” he said.
“Folks were saying, you’re going about this the right way, with the retrofit, but you are on the wrong color (tractor). I’m not moving away from Deere. You bring me an (automated) Deere tractor and I’ll buy it.’”
With the 5100E system market-ready, the company is already working on the 5100M, the 5075E is next and the 6 Series will follow.
“We have orders for all of those today,” he said.
However, it’s almost certain other brands of tractors will eventually be included in future development because the company has decided it doesn’t want to be linked to one particular colour.
“We really think we hit the nail on the head with regard to how we’re automating things, not being beholden to any specific OEM,” Burdick said.
“The true bolt-on philosophy is really a game changer.”
The Sabanto system allows for fully autonomous operation of a tractor, and Burdick said the company now has “thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of acres” of experience under its belt.
The first step in fitting a tractor with the Sabanto technology is to create a detailed field map with boundaries.
“(It’s) what we call striking a boundary,” he said.
“You’ll tell the tractor where it can and can’t go. It cannot ever go outside of that boundary. If it does, it will shut itself off and send a signal to the user that ‘I’m in trouble, I need help.’
“Then you tell the software, Mission Control, what you’d like done. Mowing for instance. How fast you’d like to go. How fast you’d like to turn. What field work characteristics. Hit the go button, then the tractor is off and running.”
The system uses infrared and normal image cameras as well as a geolocating system to monitor the tractor and its surroundings as it works.
Owners can check on the tractor through the Mission Control portal, which displays the tractor’s surroundings and monitors its functions, such as fuel level and engine temperature.
If the tractor encounters something unexpected, it stops and notifies the operator.
“Stereoscopic cameras, front, back and side, allow growers to see what’s going on,” he said.
“So when they (operators) do get an alert, that says, ‘I’m stopped in the field for whatever reason, have a look at my cameras. Can I continue?’
“If, for example, a deer ran in front of the tractor, a grower can then look at the pictures that come to him or her at the time of the stop and determine whether or not that obstruction is still there or needs further attention. If the problem’s been alleviated, they can simply hit the play button again and the tractor will move.
“We also have geolocation safety protocols, meaning if the tractor is intended to be moving at 5 m.p.h. and it’s not, or the tractor is drifting off course, it will just automatically stop. And, again, send a signal to the user.”
The company has a dozen dealers in Canada and the United States that can sell and install the system on a tractor, which takes about 7.5 hours. The sole Canadian dealer at the moment is in Ontario.
“There’s the hardware cost, then there’s an annual subscription that gives you access to Mission Control,” Burdick said.
“We will continue to advance and evolve our product going forward. As new components come out that are more accurate, as long as your subscription is active, we will ship those parts to the dealer and install them at no extra charge.”
Burdick said he thinks autonomy will offer more than a quick solution to labour shortages. Producers will also be able to use smaller equipment and run it around the clock to accomplish what more expensive, larger machines can do with a human operator in the cab running only during the day.
“We realized if we remove butts from seats, unit economics change,” he said.
“The only reason (any brand) sells (high horsepower) tractors is so you can pull wide implements and do X amount of work in a 12, 18, 20 hour day. But if you remove butts from seats, the real need for massive horsepower, we think, is going to go the way of the dinosaur. A 100 h.p. tractor can do the same work as a 500. It might take a little longer. It can do the same work with smaller implements. With no one in the seat, there’s no reason it can’t run 24 hours a day as long as you have fuel in it. Our in-house tractors do.”
Sabanto has installed larger fuel tanks on its own tractors to allow them to run that long.
“You really need to wrap your mind around what autonomy can do beyond the labour savings. How can I truly optimize my operation? Frankly we’re still learning (that) alongside our customers. The true benefit of autonomy I think, is yet to be realized.”
Connectivity is necessary for the system to work, which is limited in some rural areas, but Burdick said the Sabanto system is several times more capable of picking up a signal than a typical cellphone. As a result, it can work in areas many might not think possible.
Burdick said all of Sabanto’s staff either farm or come from a farming background, so they understand what farmers need.
“We don’t build products for Silicon Valley. We build products for growers that actually go out and work on day one,” he said.
“This is not pie-in-the-sky future state. This is working in the field today.”
