John Deere (JD) plans to improve connectivity to farmers with its new agreement with SpaceX. The companies plan to provide rural areas with cutting-edge satellite communications (SATCOM) services using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. Initial rollout will be in the second half of 2024 with a limited release in the U.S. and Brazil.
JD hopes this will allow farmers who have had connectivity challenges to more fully utilize its precision agriculture technologies. Connectivity has been an ongoing issue for farmers and robotics developers hoping to deploy systems in rural areas. This is a particular concern for JD which has been rolling out its autonomous tractor in recent years. Their 8R autonomous tractors can only operate when there is a high speed, high bandwidth connection. This is necessary for farmers to remotely control the tractor’s operation using a cellphone or tablet.
Farms that lack high-speed connectivity cannot use the autonomous tractor, impacting some of JD’s most important markets. About 30% of land farmed in the U.S. lacks access to high-speed broadband. Brazil is a key market, but is also one of the countries with a low percentage of rural high-speed coverage.
JD claims that its partnership with SpaceX will enable its customer operations to be more productive, profitable and sustainable. It will also enable technologies including autonomy, real-time data sharing, remote diagnostics, enhanced self-repair systems and machine-to-machine communication.
This agreement will also help JD with its 2023 acquisition of SparkAI (SAI), a startup developing human-in-the-loop technology to help robots resolve cases in real time. SAI’s technology allows JD autonomous tractors to get help in difficult situations, such as dust, rain or snow. When the tractor isn’t sure what to do, it can call SAI’s service and provide data/imagery to get support for real-time decisions. This technology requires the tractor to have a high-speed connection.
MOSIMTEC has significant experience providing advanced computer simulation and digital twin services in the agricultural sector. For example, for a tractor manufacturer in North America, MOSIMTEC simulated their process to replenish parts to assembly lines manufacturing three series of tractors (50+ models), including 5,000+ parts. We also help companies leverage their “big data” troves to improve performance. MOSIMTEC data scientists and industrial engineers can help you future-proof your business.
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Read More: https://www.therobotreport.com/john-deere-spacex-brings-satellite-connectivity-farmers-robots/