Jaybridge Robotics, Kinze Manufacturing to Build Autonomous Farming Vehicle

Jaybridge Robotics and Kinze Manufacturing together have developed an autonomous grain cart system. Kinze gave a demonstration of the vehicle at the annual Kinze Dealer Day event held at Iowa on the 29th of July.

Jaybridge contributed to the development of the robotic system by providing the necessary domain expertise, software and system integrations services for Kinze.

Kinze intended to develop a robotic system that will assist row crop farmers in increasing the productivity of corn and soy. The autonomous system is driven by software and is capable of executing all the process in the harvesting cycle. The robotic system consists of a moving harvester in the field, which collects the grain and transfers it to the trucks for transportation.

The COO of Kinze, Brian McKown, is of the opinion that autonomous systems used in mining, defense and other industries are bound to be useful in agriculture as well. He added that by collaborating with Jaybridge they were able to come up with effective autonomous solutions. On the other hand, Dr. Jeremy Brown from Jaybridge considered their technical expertise as a major contribution to this partnership, which complemented Kinze’s expertise in agricultural practices. He added that the products from Jaybridge were subjected to stringent quality and engineering processes. As a result, their products are robust and ready to operate in real world environments.

The robotic system is equipped with low-cost sensors, industrial embedded systems and sophisticated algorithms. The combination of low-cost yet high-performance was made possible through Jaybridge’s expert software, which is capable of running in confined computing spaces. The software is built on sophisticated algorithms, which are capable of handling real world requirements. According to Brown, the algorithms were the main factor that contributed to the building of safe and reliable robotic system. Brown is hopeful that their partnership with Kinze would grow into other sectors like industrial, military etc.