The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Giants merge to build more robo-tractors
Two agri tech giants have merged forces to give farmers the upper hand in accessing new autonomous tractor technology that can convert traditional tractors for auto use.
Based in California, Fieldin, which claims to be the world’s largest smart farm operations management company for high-value crops, has just announced it has acquired Midnight Robotics, which specialises in agricultural autonomous driving.
The acquisition creates a combination of a sensorbased operational farming platform with autonomous driving technologies, and Fieldin is already deploying its platform on major farms in California.
Farmers face increasing challenges including labour scarcity and adapting to climate change, so there is a growing need to optimise operations and prioritise farming efficiency.
Fieldin says its addition of Midnight Robotics’ deep robotic and autonomous driving technology enables an all-in-one solution to maximise accuracy and productivity.
The platform collects farming data and turns it into actionable insights and now also offers guided decision-making and autonomous execution via driverless tractors and other machinery from within the same dashboard.
They say installing these new autonomous capabilities takes under a day.
Boaz Bachar, CEO and co-founder of Fieldin, said: “Many people think that autonomous tractors are some magic solution, but at the end of the day, they’re just machinery.
“Over the past eight years we’ve digitised hundreds of farms and more than 10,000 tractors and pieces of farming equipment, more than anyone else in the high-value crop world
“Through our experience we’ve also amassed a trove of invaluable data that can offer insights into best practices in farm management.”
The company says it is the largest smart farm operations management company in the US, with 30% of US-based lettuce crops and 20% of the world’s almond crop run through their platform.
Their core product is a retrofit kit that can transform any tractor to work autonomously using advanced LiDAR perception algorithms.
Fieldin’s chief autonomy officer, Yonatan Horovitz said: “It’s not enough to have great agricultural data or great autonomous technology as you need to have both to make autonomous farming a reality.
“What’s so powerful about this merger is the potent combination of Fieldin’s unparalleled farming data collection, which includes over 49 million hours’ worth of tractor driving, with our driverless technology expertise.
“We’ll be able to help farmers reap the benefits of smart and autonomous farming, not a decade from now, but today.”