Agricultural OEMs have a long history of innovating to meet food production challenges, finding new ways to optimize production through the application of technology. Producers face growing challenges in finding skilled machine operators and growing pressures for applying sustainable farming practices. In the past these challenges have been met through larger implements that allow a single operator to product more, but physical limits to the size of machines is quickly being reached. In parallel with these growing challenges, new types of technologies have emerged over the last decade that allow for new approaches for equipment to meet the continuing needs for increased efficiency of food production. These technologies across connected systems, robotics, and data analytics have made autonomous systems feasible for agricultural applications. The industry is now emerging from the proof-of-concept stage of autonomy into the need for scalable production-ready autonomous machines.

JCA’s autonomous framework (AFW) is a set of technologies that provide the infrastructure technologies on which to build customized autonomous machines. These include advanced technologies in areas such as perception, guidance, robotics, and mission management. Combining elements from agricultural implement controls and precision agriculture, with new emerging technologies from robotics, advanced processing platforms and connectivity the JCA AFW is suited towards autonomous machine applications, but with the reliability and scalability applied from mature agricultural machine controls systems. The JCA AFW lowers the barrier for agricultural OEMs that have a vision for applying autonomy to applications where the value of these systems can be realized in the next step in the evolution of agricultural equipment.