Milestones
- Autonomous 8R tractor revealed at CESJan 2022Complete.
- Second-gen kit and autonomous 9RX and 5ML revealedJan 2025Complete.
- Full release of second-gen tillage autonomyTarget 2026Current milestone.
- Fully autonomous corn and soybean systemTarget 2030Not yet reached.
Most important updates
- Aug 2025
- 6 Jan 2025
- 4 Jan 2022
- Aug 2021
Upcoming
- 2026Full release of second-gen tillage autonomy (next)
- 2030Fully autonomous corn and soybean system
Current obstacles
- Safety validationProving it never misses a person in tall crops or dust takes huge amounts of labelled data and cautious behaviour.
- Cost and adoptionKits add real cost; they pay off only through labour savings on large farms.
Physics limits
- Stereo cameras judge far distances poorlyDepth from two cameras gets worse with the square of distance. A heavy machine needs to see obstacles far enough ahead to stop, but that is exactly where depth estimates get fuzzy, especially in dust or low light.
- Proving rare-event safety takes huge amounts of drivingWith zero failures in N hours, you can only claim a failure rate below about 3/N (the 'rule of three'). Showing a machine almost never misses a person requires millions of supervised hours.
- Dust, crop and darkness block what cameras can seeTillage throws up dust and tall crops hide the ground. Cameras need contrast and light, so perception degrades exactly in the conditions farm work often happens: dry fields, night shifts and thick canopy.
How it works
See
360° stereo vision
Pairs of cameras judge distance like eyes do, building a live 3D view around the tractor and its tools.
Decide
Classify and plan
AI labels what it sees as crop, soil, obstacle or person; the tractor follows a set GPS path and stops for anything unexpected.
Supervise
Human in the loop from afar
The farmer starts jobs and gets alerts and video on a phone, stepping in remotely when the machine stops.
Spec sheet
| Spec | Autonomy kits (8R, 9RX, 5ML) | 1st-gen 8R autonomy kit | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cameras per kit | 16R (reported) | 12 (6 stereo pairs) | ▲ 4 |
| Field of view | 360°R (reported) | — | —no comparable change |
| Orchard variant sensors | Cameras plus lidarR (reported) | — | —no comparable change |
| Compute | NVIDIA GPU modulesR (reported) | — | —no comparable change |
| Supervision | Remote via mobile appR (reported) | — | —no comparable change |
R reported by the company
Papers & demos
- Jan 2025demoSecond-generation autonomy kit at CES 2025 (opens prnewswire.com)16 cameras give 360° vision across tillage, orchard and construction machines.
- Jan 2022demoAutonomous 8R tractor at CES 2022 (opens prnewswire.com)First production-intent fully autonomous tractor from a major maker.
Update log
Aug 2025
- Minor: PressCommercial
Mon 6 Jan 2025
- Major: PressHardware
Tue 4 Jan 2022
- Major: PressHardware
Aug 2021
- Minor: PressCommercial
About John Deere
John Deere
Autonomous tractors, See & Spray, precision ag
The world's largest farm equipment maker. By buying startups such as Blue River and Bear Flag Robotics, it leads in camera-guided spraying and self-driving tractor kits, aiming for fully autonomous corn and soybean farming by 2030.
- Showed a self-driving 8R tractor at CES 2022 and a 16-camera second-gen kit at CES 2025.
- See & Spray sprays only the weeds; Deere reported 59% less herbicide on average in 2024.
- Second-gen kits go from limited use in 2025 to full release in 2026.
- Founded
- 1837189 yrs
- Headquarters
- United States
- Status
- Public
- Listed
- DE (opens google.com)NYSE
- Valuation
- public
- Works in
- AgricultureSelf-driving tractorsRoboticsAI
- Coverage
- 2 programs · 7 updateslatest 1 Aug 2025checked 25 Sep
- Partners
- SpaceX (Starlink)
- Suppliers
- NVIDIA
- People
- John May (opens deere.com)Chairman & CEOJahmy Hindman (opens deere.com)CTO