AGC Autonomy Kit

Introduction

The Agreenculture AGC Autonomy Kit represents a significant advancement in agricultural technology, offering a comprehensive and ready-to-integrate solution for transforming traditional farm machinery into autonomous, high-precision robots. Developed by Agreenculture, a specialist in autonomous farming technology, this kit is engineered to provide driverless operation for tractors and other agricultural equipment, marking a crucial step towards more efficient and sustainable farming practices.

This innovative system is designed for agricultural machinery manufacturers and growers seeking to enhance operational efficiency, safety, and precision. It integrates cutting-edge navigation, safety, and perception technologies to enable machines to perform a wide array of field tasks without human supervision. The kit's unique selling proposition lies in its combination of certified safety features and centimeter-level precision, which ensures reliable and secure autonomous operations in diverse agricultural environments.

The AGC Autonomy Kit addresses the growing demand for automation in agriculture, offering a solution that not only tackles labor shortages but also improves agronomic outcomes. By focusing on robustness, interoperability, and adherence to European safety regulations, Agreenculture aims to accelerate the deployment of autonomy in the fields, providing tangible performance gains and generating cost and time savings for farmers worldwide.

Key Features

The AGC Autonomy Kit is built upon a foundation of advanced technological components, ensuring high performance across various agricultural applications.

• Centimeter-level Precision: The system utilizes Agreenculture's proprietary S-RTK® guidance system, which delivers unparalleled navigation accuracy down to the centimeter level, with some components achieving 2mm accuracy for GNSS-RTK. This precision is maintained even in challenging environments or GNSS-limited areas through the integration of LiDAR technology, allowing for consistent and accurate field operations.
• Certified Safety (Safencing®): A cornerstone of the AGC Autonomy Kit is its certified safety architecture, featuring Safencing®. This technology establishes a certifiable virtual safety barrier, guaranteeing that autonomous machinery operates strictly within predefined boundaries. The system also incorporates a robust array of safety ECUs and sensors, including LiDAR, bumpers, and radar, which are capable of detecting obstacles such as humans and animals in real-time. Compliance with the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC and PLd grade according to ISO 13849 underlines its commitment to operational safety.
• Mission Configuration via AGC Cloud: The AGC Cloud platform provides a powerful interface for configuring and managing agricultural missions. This cloud-based solution allows users to easily adapt tasks to specific machine, implement, and field constraints, offering flexibility for both perennial and traditional field crops. This ensures optimized planning and execution of autonomous operations.
• Advanced Perception System with Embedded AI: The kit enhances autonomy with an sophisticated perception system that leverages integrated cameras and embedded AI. This allows for continuous monitoring of implements, real-time machine diagnostics, and intelligent detection of diseases, missing plants, and weeds. Such capabilities enable optimized input doses and significantly improve yield estimation, leading to more data-driven decision-making.
• Seamless OEM Integration: Designed with agricultural machinery manufacturers in mind, the AGC Autonomy Kit is presented as a plug-and-play solution. Its modular design and support for standard interfaces like ISOBUS, along with compatibility with automatic gearbox or drive-by-wire capabilities, allow for rapid and straightforward integration into existing and new agricultural machinery lines, accelerating time to market for autonomous products.
• Autonomous Navigation and Optimization: The system is proficient in autonomous navigation within crop rows and features real-time U-turn optimization to maximize field efficiency. It is designed to operate safely and effectively within a speed range of 2 to 30 km/h, adapting to various field conditions and operational requirements.

Technical Specifications

Use Cases & Applications

The AGC Autonomy Kit is versatile, enabling autonomous operations across a broad spectrum of agricultural tasks and crop types, significantly enhancing farm productivity and resource management.

• Precision Crop Management: The kit facilitates ultra-targeted operations, such as mechanical weeding and optimized treatments, allowing for precise interventions between narrow crop rows. This exactitude reduces the need for broad-scale chemical applications.
• Soil Preparation and Sowing: Autonomous machinery equipped with the AGC Autonomy Kit can perform tasks like soil preparation and sowing with consistent accuracy, optimizing seed placement and soil conditions for improved crop emergence and establishment.
• Fertilizing and Spraying: By leveraging the system's centimeter-level precision and perception capabilities, farmers can achieve highly optimized and localized application of fertilizers and pesticides. This minimizes waste, reduces environmental impact, and ensures that inputs are delivered exactly where and when they are needed. For instance, Kubota has integrated this technology into its M7 tractor for field crops and the KFAST sprayer for orchards, demonstrating its effectiveness in diverse applications.
• Vineyard and Orchard Management: Collaborations with companies like Pellenc, with its RX20 vineyard crawler, highlight the kit's applicability in specialized perennial crops. It can navigate complex layouts, performing tasks like targeted spraying or soil management in vineyards and orchards.
• Continuous Field Operations: For large-scale field crops, the ability to configure missions via AGC Cloud and ensure continuous autonomous navigation, including optimized U-turns, allows for extended operational hours and reduced labor requirements, making it ideal for large-scale operations.
• Development of Autonomous Agricultural Robots: Beyond integration into traditional tractors, Agreenculture's technology supports the development of entirely new autonomous robots, as seen with partners like Kuhn (Karl field robot) and Trabotyx (autonomous laser weeding robot TOR).

Strengths & Weaknesses

Benefits for Farmers

The AGC Autonomy Kit brings a multitude of benefits to modern agricultural operations, addressing key challenges faced by farmers today.

• Increased Efficiency and Time Savings: By enabling driverless operations, the kit allows farmers to automate repetitive and labor-intensive tasks such as soil preparation, sowing, and weeding. This frees up valuable human resources for more strategic and complex farm management activities. The ability to operate continuously, even during off-peak hours, significantly boosts overall field efficiency.
• Optimized Resource Use and Economic ROI: The centimeter-level precision achieved through the S-RTK® guidance system ensures that inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides are applied with extreme accuracy. This precision minimizes waste, leading to substantial reductions in input costs. Agreenculture suggests potential cost savings of 19,500€ per year on a 160ha farm, indicating a strong return on investment.
• Enhanced Crop Health and Yield: The advanced perception system with embedded AI provides real-time diagnostics, allowing for early detection of diseases, missing plants, and weeds. This enables prompt, targeted interventions, leading to healthier crops, reduced crop losses, and ultimately, improved yields.
• Sustainability and Environmental Aspects: The adoption of autonomous technology supports more sustainable farming practices. By enabling the use of smaller, lighter autonomous machines, soil compaction can be significantly reduced. Furthermore, precise application of inputs leads to a decrease in overall chemical usage, contributing to a healthier environment and promoting agro-ecological transitions.
• Improved Safety and Working Conditions: The certified Safencing® system and obstacle detection capabilities drastically improve safety in the field by preventing accidents involving machinery, humans, and animals. This creates a safer working environment and reduces risks associated with operating heavy machinery.