PHOTO: CNH
INTERVIEW ▶▶▶ Brad Lukac
Autonomous Magnum still to feature cab
Everyone has seen the autonomous, cabless Magnum. The tractor stole the show at various trade fairs and the clips of it went viral. Now, it stands inoperational in the museum in Racine, Wisconsin, USA. Is that the end of the exercise? No, just the beginning: CNH Industrial is working hard on the underlying technology.
T BY BOB KARSTEN
he cabless Case IH Magnum inspires much discussion and endless debate. One thing we can all agree on, though, is that it was a marketing dream. Online clips went viral and the scarlet tractor was the major attrac-
tion at numerous agricultural trade fairs. The entire debate con- cerning autonomous machinery was reinvigorated. However, everybody now knows this ‘tractor of the future’ stands in-opera- tional at the Racine Experience Center at the Magnum and T8 plant. Only one was ever built and it is no longer being tested. Is that the end of the exercise? No, certainly not, Brad Lukac assures
“in practice, a cab
will appear on future autonomous tractors”
us. He used to be responsible for this ACV (Autonomous Concept Vehicle), and is now Global Product Manager for Magnum tractors. The AVC is exhibited mainly at shows.
The cab will be back, don’t worry The ACV was built in no time: “In early 2016, our CEO told us, “next spring, we’ll be sowing autonomously”. And so we did,” states Brad
32 ▶ FUTURE FARMING | 1 november 2019
Lukac. The ACV sowed around 45 hectares of soya beans autono- mously. The absence of a cab on the ACV serves mainly to attract attention to its autonomous operation and to inspire debate about what agricultural machinery will look like in the future. It was a master-stroke from a marketing point of view. But those at Case IH know that in practice, a cab will appear on it anyway. After all, if a neighbour’s tractor gets stuck, you simply want to be able to pull it out. And it needs to be easy to just move the tractor whenever. “In this case, it’s completely impractical for us to test an autonomous tractor without a cab,” laughs Mr Lukac. Mr Lukac believes the cab has to stay in any case. “Many farmers consider riding their tractor to actually be the most enjoyable part of their work, so you don’t want to remove it completely. Farmers enjoy working with the tractor, but they also want to be able to watch the football in the evenings,” he explains. “Even though the Magnum can already drive autonomously, many farmers will also use the cab as an office, allowing them to take the wheel now and then to carry out certain tasks.”
Five levels of autonomy One core development team at CNH Industrial is working on au- tonomous vehicles. The team has defined its own five levels of au- tonomy. Level one is already being used; it means that the tractor uses GPS lines and turns automatically on the headland. The trac- tor has a driver, in this case. Level two is less well-known, though: it enables different vehicles to communicate and transmit data, such as a combine harvester and chaser bin. Level three is known as Operator Assisted Autonomy, which means that one or more tractor(s) operate autonomously but there is still a driver in the
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