| Autonomous driving systems for cars are yet to become mainstream but such systems are already hard at work in the field of agriculture. One such system is Cognitive Pilot’s Cognitive Agro Pilot™, an Artificial Intelligence-based (“AI”) system for crop harvesters. It is being adopted by Singapore-listed Don Agro International, one of the largest agricultural companies based in the Rostov region of Russia. Based in Moscow, Russia, Cognitive Pilot has more than 25 years of global experience in AI software development and has won multiple awards for its autonomous driving technologies. |
Don Agro will use autonomous driving harvesters, and expects total daily output to increase.
While modern day harvesters run on computerised technologies to enable the automation of certain processes, the harvesting process still requires significant involvement of harvester operators.
With the adoption of Cognitive Agro Pilot™, Don Agro said its crop harvester operators will be able to focus solely on managing machinery parameters (i.e., angle of the harvester header, rotor speed, cleaning of grains etc.) while the autonomous driving system steers the crop harvester.
As a result, total daily output is projected to increase as operators will be able to clock in more working hours each day due to the shift in focus to less tedious tasks.
Furthermore, the AI-powered system -- which can be installed in existing harvesters -- is able to estimate the geometry of crop edges and control the movement of the harvester with consistent precision to improve harvesting efficiency. This leads to an increase in total fuel efficiency as harvesting time is reduced.
Finally, the Cognitive Agro Pilot™ can automatically detect the surrounding topography and manoeuvre autonomously to reduce collisions, thereby avoiding serious machinery damage, breakdowns or personal injury.
Leveraging on the Cognitive Agro Pilot™, the Group expects to improve productivity as crops can now be harvested in larger volumes in shorter periods of time.
Harvesting costs are also expected to be reduced due to the increased efficiency and precision of the harvesting process.
| On this latest initiative, Mr. Marat Devlet-Kildeyev, Chief Executive Officer of Don Agro, commented, “Since our initial public offering in February 2020, we have made a number of strategic investments to acquire new machinery and expand our facilities in an effort to fuel our ongoing growth initiatives. Similarly, our latest investment in Cognitive Agro Pilot™ is a natural progression for us as we understand the importance of harnessing the power of automation to optimise our operations and improve productivity. "Specifically, this technology will empower our workers and allow them to focus on higher value-added work, while the AI autonomous driving system controls the movement of our harvesters with consistent precision. Integrating these technologies into our harvesting process will also advance our sustainability drive as we are able to reduce the consumption of fuel and carbon dioxide emissions. "As we expand our horizons to capture growth in new markets moving forward, we will also continue to place equal focus on internal initiatives including the employment of modern farming methods and new technologies as we believe they are key to ensuring the sustainable long-term growth of the Group.” |
