IH-Case Driver-less Tractor

What's the world coming to?
Youtube Video

It's just what we do not need with too many people with not enough to do as it is.

All of this is great when it works. I have found that the GPS and correction signal do not always work. Ask anyone that opted to no have markers on their planters. Make finishing a field when you lose the system fun.

Also what is the liability going to be on this stuff???? Your automated tractor runs over a gas line riser that is too short for the sensors to "see" or does not stop for the car/truck soon enough???

Just another way "farmers" can hoard more ground.

Just think , One day people will sit on an antique tractor and say I dont understand or know what to do? Bigger and bigger farms...not good.

progress

Some clips from that Video are the same as New Holland's self driving tractor video?

That's a lot of power to ram into something when all that computer stuff fails...

A driver-less tractor.
That will never work.
To much liability and will always be breaking down.

Probably fade off just like the airplane crop duster; tractor gps steering; and no cultivating roundup did.

Well years ago Allis Chalmers was looking at building a tractor without a steering wheel and seat. It was for the farmer that lost his azz and didn't know which way to turn.LOL!

IT's call automation and it's been coming for years. It's not aimed at making farmers bigger, it's aimed at long term savings in not having to have employees. Lot of the big grain guys find a good worker who is a good operator and pay them year round to keep them. If they only keep them for the growing season they have to find new ones and train them in the spring. Self driving tractor eliminates that problem. Plus in these times with current prices farmers have to minimize expenses wherever possible to stay profitable.

Now I watched this vid a few weeks ago. They are not saying the tractor can drive itself on the road. Only on farm on pre established tracts to go field to field.

Companies have been going to very expensive robotics for years for the same reason. I remember watching a tape of the JD plant making tractor cab frames around 1980. Cutting of metal, placing in a jig and the welding was all done robotically. I don't recall how many workers it eliminated but it was a bunch because this thing was fast enough that it replaced several teams to produce the same amount of frames.

If you think about it, way back when a tractor and plow replaced a couple of mules or horses one man and one plow. Bigger tractors replaced two tractors, one operator and one plow.

Anyone ever see the old original towed by horse road graders? One man driving the team and 2 or 3 guys running the blade. Or earth moving? Couple hundred people with picks, shovels and wheel barrows moving dirt? Replaced today by one man on a D8 Cat. Getting more done with less expense? Not real good for the workers but once one company does it the others have to or close their doors. Either way workers loose jobs. One way some, the other all.

Rick

As always, JD Seller makes excellent points. However progress will not stop and those problems will eventually be solved. We may not see it, but my granddaughter will likely see the day that this is common.

Every computer that I had failed or crash! You never had one?

I wonder if it will see that big rock what wasn't there last year? Stan

progress

all current tech in it nothing really "New" Cat along with most manufactures have been working on this since the 80's they have big haul trucks running this way, I first seen them running in the early 90's
cnt

Crewless trains are not too far away

I must be missing something here.

Autosteer/GPS farming has been around a long time now and is a tried and proven technology.

Systems to steer a grain cart tractor to track a combine are "old hat".

All without involving the operator.

So, it's not a real big leap to just leave the operator out of the picture, is it?

My daughter is a computer science graduate with has a pretty good job. A couple of months ago, she said that she couldn't wait for all cars to be automatically driven by a computer.
I asked her about what would happen if the whole computerized system would get a virus and suddenly ALL cars would veer to the left?
She had the deer-in-the-headlights look, with a long moment of silence as she was suddenly contemplating my hypothetical scenario.

You're so right, machines are replacing humans everywhere you look..
With more people and more coming everyday,, what is everyone going to do? I guess the ones who want to work can flip hamburgers or some other sort of service job. Maybe some will be lucky enough to get a job working in a factory building computers, tractors etc. that is if they want to move to China. All the rest will be on the government dole to live. Live in an apartment, ride public transport and shop with a government provided plastic card.
Sure sounds like a good life doesn't it?
Dick

Funny you bring that up, the Cat trucks that I was talking about were going to be dismantled and sent to a local mine here, this was in the mid 90's, the day before they were to be torn down two of them hit head-on needless to say they waited a few more years before sending them off the test track
cnt

Well, that what the farmers said before tractors took the jobs away from the work horses 100 years ago......

I saw a video similar to this one a few months ago. The auto driving tractors were supposed to be cheaper to build and maintain than conventional tractors since there are no cabs and operator comfort features to buy and maintain. It's also getting harder to find competent operators now days. I found how the tractor stopped for obstacles interesting. I drove by a freshly disced field yesterday and one end of a center pivot looked like it had been hooked and dragged several feet. That's the type of help we see around here now days.
I work part time at a trucking company. They are looking a number of years down the road at self driving transport trucks. It may seem like science fiction but I was looking at some old Popular Mechanics magazines that I kept from the 70's and 80's. I remember thinking then that the predictions they were making were far fetched. Not only have they come true, they have far surpassed what they predicted. Automation doesn't eliminate the need for human's, it simply rearranges where that help is needed.
we may never live long enough to see these innovations in common practice but I imagine our grandchildren will see them as ho-hum ordinary.