Robots in the Jungle

A new self-steering system developed by Volvo is being tested in South American sugarcane fields to see if it can reduce crop spoilage and increase yields. Photo: Volvo

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These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information

– Paul Simon, The Boy In The Bubble

Volvo tends to keep a lot of its autonomous technology development work under wraps. But, if you look around in the unlikeliest of places, you can find evidence of what the Swedish OEM is up to in terms of advanced vehicle tech.

Case in point, the sugarcane fields of Brazil, where Volvo has deployed a new self-steering truck that the company says can become a significant productivity booster for Brazilian sugarcane growers. It’s also a good example of how emerging autonomous vehicle technology can be used to solve problems that are sometimes beyond the capabilities of all but the most seasoned truck drivers.

The truck, which is used to transport newly harvested sugar cane, is steered with great precision through the fields in order to avoid damaging the young plants that will form the following year’s crop. At present, Volvo said, about 4% of the crop is lost as young plants are run over and the soil is compacted by moving vehicles. This can translate into tens of thousands of U.S. dollars in lost revenue per truck per season. Volvo said its new autonomous steering system is so precise, it will not allow a truck to deviate more than 25 mm laterally off a preset course.

The truck is undergoing field trials in a town called Maringá, an hour’s flight west of São Paulo, where the Usina Santa Terezinha Group produces sugar and ethanol from its own sugarcane crops. The truck was developed to examine how automated driving can make …Read the rest of this story

Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/blog/truck-tech/story/2017/06/robots-in-the-jungle.aspx