A fleet of unmanned John Deere tractors have been deployed in south Florida by U.S. Sugar to work across its 255,000 acres. They’re designed to operate 24 hours per day.
The new robotic fleet include four John Deere 8R Series tractors and one John Deere 9R Series tractor. They’re fitted with technology developed by Autonomous Solutions – ASI – and sold by Florida distributor Everglades Equipment Group.
The tractors, which are traditionally manually operated, are fitted with Mobius – an ASI autonomous fleet-management system. They operate autonomously with oversight from a central command station where a single operator runs multiple vehicles at once.
Ken McDuffie, U.S. Sugar CEO, said, “U.S. Sugar has always believed that combining innovation with hard work is the best way to keep feeding American families.
“By leveraging American technology to increase efficiency and maximize productivity, we are also increasing reliability in our domestic food supply while creating new higher-skilled opportunities for our employees.”
The autonomous tractors have since deployment delivered measurable benefits across the sugar farms, including improved accuracy and increased production, according to the companies. They have enhanced sustainability and increased reliability in land preparation. The technology was piloted on U.S. Sugar’s farmlands during an 18-month research and development phase. As the company expands its autonomous fleet, it states it’s working to retain every current employee by retraining tractor drivers to fill other roles across the operation.
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