Editor’s note: John Deere’s new autonomy camera kit can be retrofitted onto 2020 and newer 8R and 8RX tractors, and model year 2022 and newer 9R and 9RX tractors. All new large tractors can be built from the factory, ready for the camera kit to be installed on them. Check out the story, slideshow and video for more.

Green-machine autonomy is finally here. Unveiled at this week’s electronics show CES in Las Vegas, John Deere’s new autonomy kit turns its newer high-horsepower row crop tractors into robots.

“‘Why do I have to be in the machine? Why can’t I be doing something else?’ That question is at the essence of it,” said Jahmy Hindman, senior vice president and chief technology officer at John Deere at a pre-release press event. To meet tomorrow’s growing agricultural demands, “autonomy is considered to be the next logical step — not just by Deere, but by our customers.” 

The 16-camera array add-on, which only enables tillage autonomy for now, will be available on a limited basis this year with a full release in 2026. A separate kit is installed on 2017-and-newer tillage implements. 

Its retrofittable approach is intentional. By adding autonomy to existing tractors, Hindman says farmers can slowly integrate it into their operation.

“The natural place to start is to make the equipment farmers already own have an autonomous capability,” he says.

More with less

Harvest’s earthy aroma pervades the cool October air as Michael Stenzel, 50, quietly closes the front door of his southwestern Iowa farmhouse and crunches down the gravel driveway. The eastern sky is awash in gentle morning light, casting a pastel hue across his 5,000-acre corn and soybean farm, spanning three states. A few dusty turns away, his John Deere 9 Series Tractor rests exactly where it stopped — by itself — when dusk descended the evening before, about 40 yards beyond the field’s headland.

Stenzel starts the tractor and activates its Autonomy Mode. After a few sharp beeps, the green farm machine resumes its automated sequence, dragging a 2660VT through the dark Iowa soil along predefined guidance lines — with no driver inside. Stenzel trudges back to his idling pickup and heads on down the dirt road. 

The harvest is still unfinished, and next week’s weather forecast doesn’t look great. Time is of the essence.

“Every once in a while, I’ll check my phone from the cab to see if there’s anything wrong,” he says about the tractor’s retrofittable autonomy system, which is initiated and monitored via John Deere Operations Center Mobile. “I’ve fallen in love with the system and the process. It’s so much easier.”

Autonomy under hood

From afar, Stenzel’s autonomy-capable 9 Series Tractor doesn’t look particularly unique. A shock- and temperature-resistant array of 16 mono cameras — four on each side and four on the front — discreetly fits along the cab’s eyebrow.

THE LATEST: All new tractors will be ready built for autonomy with the kit included as a factory installed option. (Andy Castillo)

Connecting to the machine’s internal telematics, the cameras stream three overlapping feeds that create depth perception, so an artificial intelligence-equipped computer system powered by Nvidia GPUs can navigate obstacles without human direction. Engineers trained the neural network to safely navigate using myriad images of people, plants, animals and miscellaneous objects like plastic bags.

If the machine encounters something it doesn’t recognize, it’ll stop and send a picture to a team of John Deere specialists, and then await further instructions. 

Interoperable with 2017-and-newer John Deere tillage implements, the retrofittable kit “pops right onto” 2020 and newer 8R/8RX tractors, and 2022 and newer 9R/9RX tractors, according to Willy Pell, CEO of John Deere’s Blue River Technology.

“Someone should not have to buy a new tractor to experience autonomy. Tractors are very big, expensive items, and a significant capital investment,” Pell says. “Relatively speaking, the computer system and cameras that go on top of the tractor are quite inexpensive.”

The kit’s foundational platform was developed by Bear Flag Robotics, which Deere acquired in 2021. The second-generation technology represents a significant upgrade from the limited-release autonomous tractor John Deere piloted at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show.

A wiring harness ties the cameras to the tractor’s telematics, and hydraulic braking components  are added to the rear axle. Lighting is installed on the implement for nighttime operation, and a StarFire GPS receiver is required for precision guidance. While the machine is driven in real time by the onboard autonomous system, GPS mapping dictates field boundaries, guidance lines and job actions, which are predefined in Operations Center.

For now, the system only works for tillage operations, but the Moline, Ill.-based machinery brand has plans to expand its capability to other tasks (and machines) in the not-so-distant future, aligning with a broader goal of bringing autonomy to its entire corn and soybean production system by 2030.

“We started with tillage because it’s a great opportunity to do work,” says Aaron Wells, director of engineering and artificial intelligence at Blue River Technology, noting orders can be placed later this year.

Specialty crop autonomy kit

Along with its autonomous tillage system for high-horsepower tractors, John Deere announced factory-installed or retrofit autonomy kits for its 5ML Specialty Crop tractor series at a 2024 pre-release media event in California. The vineyard and tree nut system is technologically similar, with environmentally specific modifications.

“Unlike tillage solutions, which operate in broad fields, orchard tractors need to navigate through dense tree canopies. These trees can be up to 30 feet tall. That’s much taller than the tractor itself, and the density of those branches means a traditional GPS is a challenge,” says Igino Cafiero, co-founder and CEO of Bear Flag Robotics. “So, in addition to the cameras, we’ve added lidar sensors as well.”

Lidar sensors emit laser pulses that measure distance by the amount of time it takes for the beam to return to the receiver. Leveraging machine learning, the added sensor lets the tractor navigate on its own even when GPS signal is blocked by the trees, Cafiero says.

NIGHTTIME OPERATION: In addition to the camera array, a required precision upgrade kit must be installed on the tillage tool, adding necessary lights and a StarFire 7500 receiver mast to enable autonomy. (John Deere)

The 5ML autonomy kit combines the precision technology available today through a JDLink Modem, StarFire Receiver and G5 Display, complementing John Deere’s implement-agnostic rate controller for air blast sprayers. Together, they can completely automate spray operations to reduce labor needs, streamline workflows and save product.

“During harvest, it’s not uncommon for me to work 14- to 18-hour days,” says Russell Maichel, a northern California tree nut farmer showcased in a video shown to media ahead of the kit’s release. “Autonomy will change how we do things in farming. It will strengthen operations in the field without the complexity of having to manage employees who are driving tractors or train them how to drive tractors.”

John Deere simultaneously announced similar kits still under development for its 460E Articulated Dump Truck and certain QuikTrak stand-on commercial mowers at a 2024 pre-announcement media event at Blue River Technology’s test site in Gilroy, Calif. Acquired in 2017, Blue River is a John Deere subsidiary.

Filling a need

During harvest season, Stenzel, a fourth-generation farmer, takes all the help he can get.

“As of right now, it’s me; my son, Cole — he’s 20 — and a nephew who farms with us full time. We get my dad out of retirement in the fall to run a combine. He’s 76,” he says. “We have quite a few family members who come to the table to help get things done.”

As technology advances, it’s getting increasingly difficult to find skilled labor.

“You can go to the coffee shop, grab a guy and say, ‘Hey, you’re going to help me work.’ But he knows nothing about technology,” Stenzel says. “The problem we’re having is putting someone in the seat.”

It’s not just a problem at Stenzel’s farm.

Across U.S. agriculture, about 2.4 million farm jobs need to be filled annually, Hindman estimates. Half of California’s tractor jobs are currently open. Meanwhile, with an average age of 58 years old, farmers are aging out of the business. And with the ongoing rural-urban migration projected to further reduce the agricultural workforce, there’s no relief on the horizon.

DRIVERLESS CAPABILITY: While the autonomy will initially only work for tillage, its capabilities will expand to other farm operations in the future. (John Deere)

This begs the question: What will farmers do when they can’t hire labor at all?

“We think autonomy is a significant answer to that question,” Hindman says. “It’s a solution to that dilemma.”

Stenzel agrees. He started with autonomy two years ago, operating both a John Deere 8 and 9 Series Tractor and 30- and 43-foot vertical tillage machines.

“The first season was — I’m not going to say ‘unnerving’ — but it’s not what I expected it to be,” Stenzel says.

He’s learned a lot since then and has gained confidence in the technology’s effectiveness. While perhaps not for everyone, autonomy fits into his operation.

“It’s not that we have the perfect environment for it, but we have some pretty good fields that are set up for it. They’re perfectly flat. It works well. We have very little incline and decline,” he concludes.
“I’m all in.”