Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen OC_Formula for clue delivery! CTOnews.com Nvidia and Monarch Tractor, a California start-up, have launched the first commercial electric self-driving tractor built on Nvidia's artificial intelligence platform, with the first vehicles being launched to California farms and vineyards this week.

CTOnews.com learned that the tractor, called the MK-V, is Monarch's flagship "smart tractor," which uses Nvidia's Jetson edge artificial intelligence platform to perform farming tasks without a human driver. As the tractor moves along rows of crops, multiple 3D cameras and six standard cameras feed visual data into six Nvidia Xavier NX system modules (small, high-performance computers). The analysis of these data enables long-term crop yield estimates, assessment of the current crop growth stage, and tracking of plant health indicators. The tractor can also be driven by human drivers, who can monitor these metrics via real-time graphical updates on the onboard screen display, as well as view current and predicted weather conditions and the camera's 360-degree field of view.

The tractor was allegedly electric and did not use diesel fuel, which is used for most large agricultural equipment. The MK-V battery takes 5 to 12 hours to fully charge and can provide 10 hours of operation. Monarch claims that the MK-V has twice the torque of a regular tractor, and while its basic capability appears to be data collection, the MK-V can also work with implements like harvesters and sprayers to harvest crops and apply herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and water.

Nvidia said Monarch Tractor's first commercial customer was Constellation Brands, a wine, beer and spirits producer. On Wednesday, Constellation secured the keys to the first of six MK-Vs. Monarch's own research says each MK-V saves farms $2600 and 34000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. That's just to take into account the savings in fuel costs, and the farm's savings in labor are even greater.

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