SABANTO RELEASES AUTONOMY KIT FOR KUBOTA M5 TRACTORS

GreensvilleJay

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wonder if they offer a money back option...
for when the unit fails to communicate and the tractor merrily drives into the creek.....

there are 100s of scenarios where 'autonomous' just doesn't work....
like, gee... this 5 acre patch is kinda wet and slippery and the farmer can correct as needed....
 

NCL4701

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for when the unit fails to communicate and the tractor merrily drives into the creek.....
Or through the neighbor’s house or equipment shed. Or runs out into a road in front of a vehicle.

If there is a failure of the system and damage to property of others or injury results, is the manufacturer handling that as a product liability claim or is that liability falling to the owner/farmer? A runaway tractor can cause a LOT of damage.

Auto steer is a great thing for large ag operations, but those applications where it has been widely adopted still involve an operator in the cab monitoring the tractor and planter or other implement. Full autonomous is a huge step, and not at all sure it’s one that’s ripe for implementation.
 

mcmxi

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Or through the neighbor’s house or equipment shed. Or runs out into a road in front of a vehicle.

If there is a failure of the system and damage to property of others or injury results, is the manufacturer handling that as a product liability claim or is that liability falling to the owner/farmer? A runaway tractor can cause a LOT of damage.

Auto steer is a great thing for large ag operations, but those applications where it has been widely adopted still involve an operator in the cab monitoring the tractor and planter or other implement. Full autonomous is a huge step, and not at all sure it’s one that’s ripe for implementation.
There's still going to be a driver in the cab paying attention. My thoughts are that you're less likely to miss areas when spraying or seeding if you've created an A-B line and let the tractor do its thing.
 

NCL4701

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There's still going to be a driver in the cab paying attention. My thoughts are that you're less likely to miss areas when spraying or seeding if you've created an A-B line and let the tractor do its thing.
That’s the way semi-autonomous auto steer, etc. works now and that’s wonderful technology IMO. I assumed that’s what this was, but possibly targeting some tractors or ag equipment that current aftermarket providers (Steady Steer by Ag Leader, etc.) don’t cover. But…

In the OP, there were two links, one to an article and one, https://sabantoag.com/ to Sabanto’s website. The headline pic on Sabanto’s website shows two tractors running planters sans operators. A few quotes from Sabanto’s website:

SAVE TIME AND MONEY
With our aftermarket autonomy system installed on your tractor, you will be free to do whatever you want while it completes all of your field operations.

LIKE NOTHING ELSE

  • Use your existing equipment
  • Run all day and night
  • Deploy multiple tractors in a field
OUR DREAM FOR FARMING

JUST PRESS "GO"
Take your tractor to the field, press "go" and get to more important things - like family.

RUN ALL NIGHT
Sleep well knowing your tractors will be working all night long.


SMALLER IS BETTER
Use smaller tractors for your field operations with less expense and compaction.

SWARM FARMING
Bring one tractor, or an entire army to get the job done
.

When I originally saw the post I was assuming this was some sort of auto-steer. According to their website their intent/vision is for a farmer to replace a small number of large tractors with a larger number of small tractors, get them all working on large scale areas like ants on misplaced MoonPie, and head off to bed or fishing or wherever. The farmer sets them in motion and the operation continues while the farmer gets a good night’s sleep.

That’s not an incremental improvement to the current level of autonomy in the market. It’s not just expanding the current level of semi-autonomy to machines that may not currently be serviced by other providers.

It’s a vast shift in how large scale ag is done. Now, there is an operator monitoring a plethora of things on the tractor and implement (if it’s something like a planter that needs monitoring) in addition to being backup driver. If everything runs perfectly, the operator doesn’t do much. There’s generally stuff to be done somewhere between start and finish. Quite often some of that involves some steering at the end of rows.

This is full autonomy. VERY different. Quoting someone who agrees with my interpretation of what their product does (quoted from the article linked in the OP):

“We are completely disrupting the way the industry views autonomous equipment, and we are bringing in partners who share our vision,” says Craig Rupp, founder and CEO of Sabanto. “We see a future of smaller, smarter, lighter, less expensive, and more sustainable swarms of autonomous equipment that will enable users to cover more ground with less.”

I could go on for quite a while about why I believe their dream is more of a nightmare but this post is already very long and my opinion isn’t worth a lot in that regard. I’m not a large farmer so I’m not a potential customer anyway.
 
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NCL4701

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Addendum to my post above…

The way they’re marketing this makes me wonder a bit how in touch they are with their target market. Or possibly I’m missing who their target market actually is as I’m assuming it’s large ag.

Their web page is focused on the labor saving for the farmer. The kind of pitch I’d expect to see for a mostly consumer product such as an air fryer or autonomous lawnmower.

I work in an ag support industry that deals with large farmers, albeit specific to NC. The mid to large (not the side gig supplementing a W-2 job) farmers I work with are serious business people in a tough business with a lot of risk and tight margins. They’re much more concerned about the bottom line on their balance sheet than how much sleep they get during planting season. They’re trying to convince those business people it’s better to transition from three 400 HP tractors running GPS auto-steer with 24 row planters to fifteen 90 HP tractors running full autonomous with 5 row planters. I don’t see them convincing many of their potential customers with the prospect of sleeping through planting. If they were talking more about expense saving, ROI, reduced exposure to lost production due to breakdowns, reduced staffing needs; more of a business case, then I could see some adoption of their product. Sure, there may be some who will give this a test run on one tractor and develop the data for the business case themselves.

Their model doesn’t seem to fit harvest as well as it fits planting. At harvest, the farmer can’t run large carts like they do now because they don’t have the large tractors to pull them. So now they have a larger fleet of smaller tractors pulling a commensurate fleet of smaller carts, which are harder to hit with the unload auger of a moving harvester and require multiple operators as full autonomy pulling a cart from a truck loading staging area or storage site (which often involves public road use) to a field and back is unlikely. The auto steer capability to link to the harvester while loading on the fly is already on the market, but it’s that trip to and from the field that requires a driver in the seat.

Last, and this one is specific to my wheelhouse, one of the issues with full autonomous vehicles (on road or off) is that for our legal system, at least in the US, there is no case law (that I’m aware of anyway, and certainly none in NC) that addresses who is responsible for damages and injuries caused by malfunction of a fully autonomous vehicle. Is it a product defect action against the manufacturer? A negligent maintenance / negligent operation action against the owner/operator? The real answer is likely both pointing fingers at each other and fact specific to each case, which isn’t a good situation for those who have been harmed as the “facts” are a jury question and unlikely to be agreed upon by all in many cases. So far, that’s been an interesting academic debate and nothing more as the “autonomous” vehicles currently in production, outside of highly controlled environments such as factories, have, to my knowledge, retained the caveat that an operator must be present and alert as the operator has the final responsibility for the actions of the vehicle and the autonomous functions are “driver aids” not full autonomy, which allows the manufacturer to wash their hands of the liability issue in all but the most egregious of defect cases, same as is the case with vehicles without driver aids. In this scenario the manufacturer is suggesting the owner/operator set the machines in motion and retire to bed while the multiple machines work. That’s FAR different legally from anything currently in the market.
 
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GreensvilleJay

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For sure the legal aspect of who is to blame WHEN it fails, and it WILL fail, needs to be addressed NOW,before the neighbours kids in their picnic get killed by the 'runaway' tractor. It has to be Sabanto and their 'agents'.
Legally no different than Microsoft autoupdating Windows 10 and 11 and 'trashing' your computer. MS is the one doing the updates so THEY need to be held responsible 'for any and all damages resulting from THEM ' accessing your computer.
 

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I was watching the iowanfarmer on YouTube and he was at their State AG show. He spends sometime looking at a prototype autonomous planter. It is interesting to see how far they have come with the technology and the approach/mindset with the new technology.

 

mcmxi

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That’s the way semi-autonomous auto steer, etc. works now and that’s wonderful technology IMO. I assumed that’s what this was, but possibly targeting some tractors or ag equipment that current aftermarket providers (Steady Steer by Ag Leader, etc.) don’t cover. But…
Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't realized this was a Roomba iRobot type of thing. I'm no longer excited. :LOL:
 
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GreensvilleJay

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1st fun fact about the original roombas....
you could go online and see if ANY of them were working or not....
2nd fun fact, when you added the NEST 'data', you could figure out when a person is at home,when they go to work, return, etc. IE when to break into their house....

Ain't new 'tech' GREAT ???
 

NCL4701

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For sure the legal aspect of who is to blame WHEN it fails, and it WILL fail, needs to be addressed NOW,before the neighbours kids in their picnic get killed by the 'runaway' tractor.
To my admittedly limited knowledge as I have been following the autonomous vehicle issue, primarily as it regards autonomous road vehicles prior to reading about Sabanto here, at least most state legislatures and insurance regulators agree with that portion of your post. The prevailing sentiment appears to currently be that autonomous vehicles not be allowed on public roads except for specifically permitted controlled testing until both the technology is sufficient to ensure public safety and the issue of responsibility is clarified to avoid mass confusion and over running of courts, which will likely require specific laws addressing responsibility. No one has gotten past the “ensure public safety” yet so they haven’t gotten to the responsibility issue yet. I am hopeful that will be resolved before we have driverless vehicles on the road.

This off road stuff is subject to much less regulation so there’s no current mechanism to stop implementation pending legislative review of adequate safety and liability implications. They can roll this out and let the chips fall where they may. And I find that concerning for the first time I’m involved in the investigation and defense or settlement of an incident involving a fully autonomous tractor.