A US company – Built Robotics – has a fully autonomous skid-steer loader working in San Francisco.
The firm – a recent start-up company – is planning to bring the technology to market as soon as possible; it expects to do so in 2018, according to a CNBC report.
The man behind the project – Noah Ready-Campbell – previously worked at tech giant Google. During the past couple of years, he’s been busy working on software and sensor technology, to enable otherwise-standard excavators and construction equipment to work autonomously (without a driver).
These machines can, for example, perform digging and loading tasks without operator intervention – reportedly for hours at a time.
Most recently, the company has retro-fitted its high-tech wizardry to a skid-steer loader, enabling the machine to perform routine tasks on a typical building site. For safety, the software can be programmed to limit the machine’s movements to a particular area.
As of yet, the company is a fledgling entity. It has, however, already reportedly raised $15 million in working capital.
Kubota trialling ‘driverless’ tractors
In other recent news, albeit with a more farming-related theme, Kubota is currently selling autonomous ‘driverless’ tractors on a trial basis in Japan, with the intention to launch the machines for full-scale sale as early as 2018.
The move towards autonomous machinery is pitched as an answer to the challenge of an ageing farming population, which is an issue for Japanese agriculture, according to the company. It is also an issue that many countries, including Ireland, are facing to some degree.
Kubota’s current driverless tractor is a 60hp machine used for automatic tilling. An autonomous rice transplanter and 100hp harvester are also being tested.
Image source: Kubota-global.net
According to the Japanese firm, it is working towards the establishment of autonomous technology and a “stronger linkage of the Kubota Smart Agri System (KSAS) with all sorts of farm machinery”.
The driverless tractor is the latest product in the company’s Farm Pilot farm machinery range, which includes GPS (Global Positioning System) guidance and field mapping technology to “improve accuracy and reduce labour costs”.
Guided by GPS coordination, the driverless tractor is also equipped with sensors to determine the presence of obstacles. When something is encountered, the tractor stops automatically – to counter health and safety concerns.
