A homegrown driverless tractor for California farmers
Despite the fact big ag equipment corporations like Deere & Company, Kubota Company and others, along with numerous well-funded start-ups, have developed driverless tractors, you don’t see many of the autonomous farm vehicles working the fields in California’s agricultural-rich Central Valley or elsewhere in the Golden State. This is mainly because the technology is new and the machines remain relatively expensive.
But two Central Valley-based entrepreneurs, Connor Kingman and Zach Sheely, hope to change this equation and speed-up the adoption and use of self-driving tractors by farmers in California, focusing first in the Central Valley, the largest farming region in the world, with what they say is a more cost-effective driverless tractor.
In June, Kingman, a mechanical engineer and founder-CEO of Lemoore-based Kingman Ag Services, and Sheely, a farmer and president of Sacramento-based Agworld Inc., demonstrated their Kingman Driverless Tractor at the Sheely family’s diversified farming operation, which includes grapes, pistachios, cotton, tomatoes and other row crops, in Kings County near Lemoore in the Central Valley.
The self-driving tractor is the brainchild of engineer Kingman. He came upon the idea while he was working on autonomous robotics projects at the University of California, Irvine. He then connected with Sheely, who partnered with him through Agworld and his family’s farm company, Azcal Management Co, which created the software that runs the tractor and an associated app.
The Kingman Driverless Tractor is unique compared to the built-from-the-ground-up autonomous tractors the big ag equipment companies and well-funded startups have developed because it’s a modification of an existing conventional tractor.
The self-driving tractor uses cameras and Lidar for navigation, which the entrepreneurs said makes it less-expensive for farmers because a GPS system and other more costly infrastructure aren’t needed.
According to Kingman, the autonomous tractor works based on acres of farmland rather than using GPS. “It looks at the object [like a crop] and its surrounding environment with the cameras and lights rather than using GPS,” he said during the June demonstration at the Sheely farming operations in Kings County.
Sheely said that by modifying an existing tractor instead of designing a completely new machine, the costs can be kept low and most materials and spare parts are available from local machinery shops.
The driverless tractor has a large fuel tank which allows it to run for 24 hours, according to Kingman. It also offers better fuel efficiency than traditional manned tractors he said because there is less quick and frequent acceleration, so less fuel is used, and things like spray field applications are done at the right speed.
The June demonstration in the vineyards and fields at the Kings County farm was well received by the farmers and others who attended.
The entrepreneurs told those attending that their driverless tractor offers a more cost-effective way for farmers to reap the benefits offered by a driverless tractor, such as labor-savings, fuel efficiency savings and increased precision. That California farmers are experiencing a labor shortage also is a key benefit when it comes to autonomous farm equipment like self-driving tractors.
Kingman said at the demonstration that the driverless tractor will soon be available for farmers to lease, which he added offers cost-savings benefits. Additionally, he added, because the cost for farmers depends on the number of acres they plan to use it on, it makes it more affordable for them than a general purchase or lease payment, which other companies generally require.
With increasing farm labor shortages for farmers in California, autonomous farm vehicles like driverless tractors are increasingly making sense on the farm both practically and from a cost-benefit analysis perspective.
The two Central Valley entrepreneurs believe they’ve created a locally-based, cost-effective solution for California farmers looking for driverless help on the farm today.
