At the end of the 19th century the first steam tractors emerged, which were to revolutionize agriculture: they reduced the need for labor, accelerated tasks and made it possible to dispense with beasts of burden and drag. The pastures and land dedicated to feeding them became new extensions in which to cultivate.
Shortly after, the more efficient gasoline tractors arrived, and since then these vehicles have not stopped evolving. The most modern ones have air conditioning, GPS and large screens on which you can see how things are going on the farm.
The American tractor manufacturer Case IH has just presented at a fair in Iowa (USA) dedicated to agricultural progress a prototype of autonomous tractor that does not need a driver and makes its owner more of a machine manager than a farmer the old way. The vehicle dispenses with the cabin and integrates GPS , cameras with sensors and various radar systems.
An application allows you to program your actions and synchronize your work with that of other tractors equipped with the same technology. If the vehicle runs into an obstacle on its way, it warns its owner and he can change his route by remote control.
Agricultural beast
The star of Case IH is a good bug: it has 419 hp, compared to 340 of the most powerful models of the Magnum series, the brand’s most modern, and it sports an aggressive design that gives it an air of a Transformer on the verge of stand up.
It is still a prototype, but it is one more example of the growing application of robotics to agriculture. For example, drones are increasingly used to monitor the condition of crops and terrain, locate pests in early stages of development, fertilize and spray, and even act as scarecrows.
A study by the consulting firm IDTechEx quoted by the newspaper El País is very significant about the future of the sector: the market for robots and drones for agriculture moves 3,000 million dollars annually. In 2022 it will reach 10,000 and in 2026 it will be around 20,000.
Here you can see how the Case IH prototype works.
