Review of Technologies, Regulations and Operating Standards for Field Based Autonomous Agricultural Machinery

Review of Technologies, Regulations and Operating Standards for Field Based Autonomous Agricultural Machinery

To inform the development of a Code of Practice (CoP) for Autonomous Machinery in Agriculture a review was undertaken to assess current technology developments and the status of standards and regulations informing the commercial release of this technology. Large equipment manufacturers including companies such as John Deere, Case New Holland, AGCO, CLAAS, Deutz Fahr and Kubota are progressively moving from automation to autonomy where machinery systems operate independently from human involvement. These developments occur at the component level and provide a pathway to autonomy where value is extracted as features and functionality on new models of machinery. A review of the technology landscape suggests that many of the enabling features for full autonomy are already present on recent model tractors with the exception of machine perception. The current level of technology availability suggests that autonomous technology is within reach of a commercial reality. In this regard non-technical considerations which inform the roll out of this technology is timely and include the obligations of manufacturers, dealers (including service agents), end users of the technology as well as standards and test protocols informing the safe operation of this equipment. New standards are currently being developed which will inform the commercial development of autonomous systems however there is a lack of information on performance expectations, testing protocols and assessment criteria for the infield application of autonomous machinery which requires further work. Similarly developments in agricultural autonomous machinery are limited by the absence of an agreed definition for the Operating Design Domain (ODD) which provides specifics on the operating environment and machinery requirements. Clarity on the ODD will help define technology requirements, the development of standards, expected performance and protocols for testing and assessment. Restricting the ODD to a structured operating environment will provide a progressive implementation of autonomy in agriculture. It is apparent from the transport sector that restricting the ODD has contributed to the roll out of driverless cars and that a controlled release of autonomous machinery on farm and under commercial use cases will greatly assist more broad scale / wider release of the technology. The CoP informed by this review, will provide the overarching structure to separate work such as the implementation of new standards, design specifications and test protocols that will facilitate the commercial release of autonomous machinery in Australian agriculture.

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