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John Deere Unveils its First Self-Driving Articulated Dump Truck NUTS & BOLTS Continued from page 43 Deere's self-driving 460E-II articulated dump truck relies on stereo cameras, satellite-signal receivers and algorithms to navigate autonomously. John Deere unveiled its first autonomous articulated dump truck to debut this week at the CES consumer technology show in Las Vegas. A 460E-II truck has been equipped with an autonomy kit developed by Deere and its subsidiaries, Blue River Technol- ogy and Bear Flag Robotics. e truck marks Deere's first autonomous venture for the construction industry. {To watch it in ac- tion, check out the video at the end of this story.} During a pre-CES press event No- vember 13 at Blue River's demonstra- tion grounds in Gilroy, California, Deere unveiled and demonstrated the 46-ton self-driving truck. Aer research and development is finished, the auton- omous technology would likely be sold as a retrofit kit for the 460 P-Tier, Deere's largest articulated dump truck and the replacement for the 460E, according to company officials. Deere has been test- ing the autonomous ADT at quarries and seeking customer feedback. No word yet on when it might be available for market, as extensive research and devel- opment is still under- way. During the No- vember press event, Deere officials said the autonomous technology is de- signed to help solve construction's labor shortage. Autonomy would bring operator reliability and safety to a repetitive task for aggregate quarries and potentially for site development. Jahmy Hindman, Deere chief tech- nology officer, cited survey results that indicated 88% of construction contrac- tors have difficulty finding workers. "at's an incredible and astounding num- ber," he said. "Fun- damentally, nobody in construction can find the labor that they need to get the work done, that they need to get done at the time they want to get it done. at's the reality." How It Works e technology for the self-driving ADT is based on Deere's fully autonomous tractors, first unveiled at CES 2022. e "autonomy stack," as Deere calls it, consists of two of the company's Starfire 7000 satellite-signal receivers designed for its Preci- sion Ag machine-con- trol systems. Six stereo cameras on the truck provide its 360-degree "vision," and on top sits a yellow box containing two vision processing units. "One thing that I want to point out that's exciting about this is that we're using so much ruggedized Deere hardware that already exists in other equipment," said Grant Warden, Blue River systems architect. To operate the auton- omous ADT, according to Maya Sripadam, Blue River senior product manager, a job superintendent or "orchestrator" would have an uploaded map that defines the haul roads the ADT would travel as well as load and dump points. e superintendent would then define the truck's mission via the map soware. ose overseeing the truck would commu- nicate with it through Deere's Operation Center. e system can also be operated by app. With the retrofit kit, operators would still be able to run the truck manually if they choose. "It doesn't go fully into autonomy until you have safely exited the cab, done your walkaround, then you'd have a visual confir- mation on our app as well," Sripadam said. e truck also has obstacle detection to prevent conflict with workers, trucks and equipment and other objects. Warden explained that deep-learning algorithms are run on each of the truck's 360-degree camera frames that identify what's in the images. Another algorithm positions items in three dimension for situa- tional awareness for the truck to navigate and respond to changes in its environment. "It is operating fully autonomously, which means it's not only safeguarding, but it's also making decisions and following instruc- tions," Sripadam said. Watch it in action https://youtu. be/8cHya-_XC_4 https://www.equip- mentworld.com Nuts & Bolts contin- ued on page 46 IDA Universal January - February 2025 45

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