Recently, Nvidia and Monarch Tractor, a California start-up company, launched the first commercial electric self-driving tractor, which is manufactured using Nvidia’s artificial intelligence platform. Rolling out to farms and vineyards in California.
The tractor, called MK-V, is Monarch’s flagship “smart tractor” that uses NVIDIA’s Jetson edge artificial intelligence platform to perform farming tasks without a human driver. As the tractor moves along rows of crops, multiple 3D cameras and six standard cameras feed visual data into six NVIDIA Xavier NX system modules (small high-performance computers). Analysis of this data enables long-term crop yield estimates, assessment of the crop’s current stage of growth, and tracking of plant health indicators. The tractor can also be driven by a human driver, who can monitor these metrics with real-time graphical updates displayed on the onboard screen, as well as view current and predicted weather conditions and the camera’s 360-degree field of view.
The tractor is said to be electric and does not run on diesel, which is used by most large agricultural equipment. The MK-V’s battery takes 5 to 12 hours to fully charge and provides 10 hours of operation. Monarch claims the MK-V has twice the torque of a typical tractor, and while its basic capability appears to be data collection, the MK-V can also work with implements such as harvesters and sprayers to harvest crops and apply herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and water.
Monarch Tractor’s first commercial customer is wine, beer and spirits producer Constellation Brands, Nvidia said. On Wednesday, Constellation received the keys to the first of six MK-Vs. Monarch’s own research says each MK-V can save farms $2,600 and 34,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. This is just to account for the savings in fuel costs, the farm saves even more in terms of labor.
