Kinze Manufacturing, Inc. has continued its progress on Kinze Autonomy, refining the capabilities of its groundbreaking autonomous row-crop solution and undertaking release previews on three large Illinois farms this harvest season. The system was recently showcased for the first time at a farm in Monmouth, Ill.

As the world’s first large-scale, truly autonomous row-crop solution, Kinze’s autonomous system is capable of completing many tasks with minimal direct human input, including planting, nourishing, maintaining and harvesting crops.

• Follow: The autonomous grain cart system follows the combine through the field at a safe distance.
• Unload: When the combine operator is ready to unload the grain into the cart, they press the “Unload” button on their tablet. The autonomous grain cart system then speeds up and pulls alongside the combine, matching its speed to the combine’s and positioning the cart under the combine unload auger. The combine operator can then start filling the cart.
• Park: After unloading, the combine operator can instruct the autonomous grain cart system to return to the edge of the field. From there, the cart can be unloaded into a semi-trailer for the grain to be hauled away from the field.
• Idle: When instructed, the system will come to a controlled stop at its current location and wait for further instruction.

As farm communities shrink and farmers face increasing challenges finding skilled labor during the harvest season, Kinze Autonomy aims to help them work as efficiently as possible. The autonomous grain cart system allows farmers to keep their combine running during the brief harvest window without needing an extra person in the field to run the tractor and cart. Even better, the grain cart system never gets tired, and will operate as precisely at the end of the day as the beginning. For farmers who need to burn the midnight oil to get their harvest in, the autonomous grain cart is an able partner.