John Deere revealed several new autonomous machines during a press conference at CES 2025 to support customers in construction, agriculture, and commercial landscaping. Building on Deere’s autonomous technology first revealed at CES 2022, the company’s second-generation autonomy kit combines advanced computer vision, AI, and cameras to help the machines navigate their environments.
While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability.
“Our agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping customers all have work that must get done at certain times of the day and year, yet there is not enough available and skilled labor to do the work,” says Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere. “Autonomy can help address this challenge. That’s why we’re extending our technology stack to enable more machines to operate safely and autonomously in unique and complex environments. This will not only benefit our customers, but all of us who rely on them to provide the food, fuel, fiber, infrastructure, and landscaping care that we depend on every day.”
EXPANDING AUTONOMY
John Deere’s first autonomous piece of construction equipment: the autonomous 460 P-Tier Articulate Dump Truck (ADT). This fully autonomous haul truck leverages the second-generation autonomy kit to help contractors and heavy equipment operators solve challenges related to machine operator shortages. The autonomous ADT’s camera array provides a 360-degree view of what’s around the machine, recognizing common objects in a construction environment like a quarry. The haul truck can continuously evaluate its surroundings and navigate from the loading area to the designated dumping area, which are often on opposite sides of a quarry site requiring the vehicle to navigate challenging terrain. Depth models ensure the haul truck can not only gauge what an object is, but where it is in relation to the ADT. Advanced sensors and algorithms are used to localize the machine on its road as it follows the path between the load zone and haul zone. During setup, customers can specify load zones, dump zones, and haul routes using the John Deere Operations Center. Deere’s Autonomous 460 P-Tier ADT is actively being tested to enhance productivity and operational efficiency and will evolve as we learn what works best for the customers.
In addition to the ADT, John Deere autonomous technology is expanding to an autonomous 9RX Tractor for large-scale agriculture; an autonomous 5ML Orchard Tractor for air blast spraying; and an autonomous Battery Electric Mower for commercial landscaping.
RETROFIT OPTION
Select machines will be autonomy ready from the factory, and the second-generation perception system will be available as a retrofit kit for certain existing machines, providing customers with multiple paths to adoption based on where they are in their technology journey.
The machines are managed via John Deere Operations Center Mobile, the company’s cloud-based platform. By swiping left to right to start, the machine can be started once placed in the appropriate spot. Through the app, users also have access to live video, images, data and metrics, and the ability to adjust various factors like speed. In the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, users will be notified remotely so they can make necessary adjustments.
about the author
Kara Ferry is construction public relations manager for John Deere. For more, visit www.deere.com.