LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In addition to many acres of new farm equipment to view at this year’s National Farm Machinery Show, there will be 19 seminars throughout this four-day event. And one topic that is on every farmer’s mind these days is that of automation.

While the idea of automation on the farm has been a hot topic the last two years, it is gaining strength. So much so that a separate seminar has been dedicated to the subject.

“We’ve made significant advances in autonomy on the farm the past several years,” said Willie Vogt, editorial director for Farm Progress and host of the seminar entitled “Talking Driverless Tech.” “We discussed this subject during a seminar at this show last year. It was our first year on this subject. Since then, we’ve seen many things appear on the market and that has been quite a surprise.”

Paul Welbig, director of sales at Raven Industries, and Jeremy Leach, director of autonomy for Trimble Agriculture, will present their take on such things as driverless tractors, robotic planters and more. Autonomous planting, spraying and harvesting by way of a remote, hand-held tablet are not here yet, but experts like Leach say they are coming.

Trimble’s development work on driverless farm equipment is based on four levels of autonomy. They are operator assistance (level 1), where the operator is reliant on visual indicators to provide information in real-time; task automation (level 2), which is a smart system capable of automatically completing tasks (establishing lanes used by a variety of vehicles); supervised autonomy (level 3), where the operator is in a supervisory role but is still responsible for reacting to unexpected conditions; and full workflow automation (level 4), which is work in the field without direct supervision by the operator.

“The levels of autonomy for ag are real, and they’re all significant,” Leach said. “But they can also seem very, very small at the time. Guidance is one of those steps. We’ve become so used to it that if we took it away, people would be upset because it’s invaluable. A level 2 solution offers assistance to the operator. In order to get to a level 4 solution, you need the level 2 solutions to be in place, you need the operators to have confidence in them, so that they trust in them.”

With autonomic technology there is concern that the farmer might get overwhelmed.

“It’s not about just throwing on more buttons and bells,” Leach said. “We’ve got to make sure that the user experience and the farmer’s experience are optimized, efficient, and it’s something that they’re comfortable with.”

Welbig will discuss his company’s advance in autonomy and put some real-world application to it all. He will explain how a farmer will engage with this driverless technology and explain what direction this ‘new’ ag is headed.

“Autonomy is not just for the mega farm, it’s for the small farm as well,” Vogt said. “One company in California has developed an 80-horsepower electric tractor that’s also autonomous. In one’s small apple orchard you could turn an automated piece of machinery loose to run a sprayer on a route in between the rows and save on labor. There’s a lot of work being done with small equipment like this.

“There’s a significant amount of opportunity for small equipment operators with labor issues, and that’s the whole point of autonomy. There’s less people to do the work, so we take the driver out of the machine. The other side of it is that the autonomy technology allows for better automation, which means a less skilled operator can do a better job in the machine.”

During this interaction between show visitors and the panel, Vogt is certain that folks will question the cost to all this autonomous technology.

“The thing is, you’ll be replacing someone who you’re paying $30,000-$40,000 a year to do that job, while you will have a $200,000 machine that offers you a four- to five-year payback. You could bring in less experienced people in and train them.

“The cost-to-benefit ratio is still being worked out, but the other side of it is when you have no one to help and the machine can work 24 hours a day then there’s value in it.”

Vogt’s “Talking Driverless Tech” seminar will be Feb. 16 in South Wing B 104.