Automation and Electric Study of the Tractor With Dr. Jianfeng Zhou

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Hey, everybody, I'm Paul Yeager, this is the MtoM Show podcast, a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. I am super excited and geeking out just a tiny little bit. I love discussions about the economy and renewable fuels. But we're getting science fiction in today. I mean, seriously, we're talking about futuristic, autonomous tractors. Electric, autonomous tractors. A new machine just came to the University of Missouri in Columbia. And we are going to talk to one of the lead researchers on this project. His name is Dr. Jianfeng Zhou, and he is a professor there at University of Missouri and we're going to have a little bit of a philosophy discussion about the industry as a whole, then we're going to get a tour of this machine, and smile, because we're going to be on camera. So if you're watching this on YouTube, bear with us just a little bit on some of the tour. If you're listening, you're gonna want to watch it, I'm sorry, you're just gonna want to see this thing. We don't put it into action. We're in the lab right now today when we have this. But it's a great looking thing. We're going to talk about precision and sustainable agriculture and where we're headed in the next 5 to 10 years. If you have any email for me, or the program, send it to me at paul.yeager@iowapbs.org. If you have any ideas for what we should get into next, or where we should look, that's what I'd like to hear. And I enjoy it. And it really means a lot when you share or tell a friend that you've watched this episode of the MToM Show podcast. New episodes each and every Tuesday. Now, let's get to class. 

[Paul] This is just a beautiful morning to be in the lab, right? I mean, these are the days you enjoy your job instead of being inside. Is that right? 

[Jianfeng Zhou] That's correct. 

[Paul] So you're at the Missouri University of Missouri campus. Your background, though is your undergrad was in China, you have a degree from Washington State. Are you more of an agriculture background? Engineering background? What is it there, doctor?

[Jianfeng] Yeah, so my background is called agricultural engineering. So basically combine agronomy and engineering so that's applied a degree. 

[Paul]  When you grew up, what was the dream? Was it to work on a tractor that operates not with a human? 

[Jianfeng] Yeah, that's kind of like a movie. When I was grew up, when I was young,, I can see how farmers were doing the hard job in the field. The start of early morning into the very late night, cannot deliver their food. And I really wish we have some robots and help on the farm, so they can release a family member to enjoy dinner time, for example.

[Paul]  Right, we'll get into the benefits of this machine here in a moment. Your study has been agricultural, or agriculture engineering. So that is trying to make an item better, trying to evolve the technology. And technology is really at the center of engineering, right? 

[Jianfeng] That's correct. So yeah, that's my whole career goal is trying to develop a new technology to improve the agriculture production. Improve efficiency and make it more sustainable. And also, you know, a professor here to teach you the course related to this.

[Paul]  So was your thought always to be on the academic side? Or did you have sites on a more of the professional business side?

[Jianfeng] I'm more academic side. So my whole life, part of my whole life, is spent the on campus, I never left the campus. So, work with students or researchers, you know, work with stakeholders, but you know, my background is related to academics.

[Paul]  Campus life is your life. Some people just never leave college and that would be you. 

[Jianfeng] That's right. 

[Paul] So what's your course load like this fall? What are you teaching?

[Jianfeng] So currently, I'm teaching two courses. One course they're called Internet of Things for agriculture. It basically teaches students how the internet can help farming, you know, we move everything online. Your smartphone, you know, web apps. And now, of course, teaching students to the capstone project. So my students all enjoy using new tractor to compare with diesel tractor. How they can work better. How they can see the two different cognitive system. That's the two courses I’m teaching. But in spring, I also teach another course called Sensors and Control Technology for Agriculture. I let students win over all our sensor system on a board and machinery. How to make the problem better. How to make the performance better.

[Paul] So the sensors - that's key in this autonomous world, right? You have to be able to know where things are at to tell the machine where to go. That's a very gross generalization of what your’re teaching, right?

[Jianfeng] Yeah, the sensor is the center of, we call it the digital age of farming, digital agriculture. Sensor is is the device, configure the ties, all the information, you know, to sense all kinds of environment, make the student perform better.

[Paul] Do you anticipate that technology and agriculture is going to benefit more farming in the United States? Farming in Brazil? The world? Where do you see technology benefiting a farmer the most?

[Jianfeng] Yes, the technology evolving very quickly, it will benefit the whole world for sure. U.S., for sure will benefit the most. Because we have more land. And we have less farmers on the field. So we need a technology to assist this work toreduce labor or lower working load. And to make it more sustainable. How to convert from the traditional agriculture, for example, diesel basically have the greenhouse gas emissions, how they can convert to green energy., Tocontribute to the mission of climate change.

[Paul]  If I put a gas engine in front of you, a diesel engine. Would you know what to do with it? I wouldn't?

[Jianfeng] Yeah. That's a good question.

[Paul] So this technology you talked about, in the very beginning of our chat, allowing the farmer to have a meal with their family. Is autonomy really going to allow us to just walk away from the machine, turn it loose and come back in an hour?

[Jianfeng] Yeah, that's a good question. So technology on your side, yes. You know, if you think about the autonomous cars, you know, there's no drivers, they can drive on a road, you know, similar thing will happen with agriculture, but we need a one more step, you know, to work with the government, getting more the regulation, how this can be working in fields autonomously. But yes, so, you know, in the near future, we can see, there's more autonomous system. It’s not a tractor driving itself, but there will have other system working autonomously. Like they can do a huge decrease and without any bother there. You know, I anticipate, there's potential all the farmers saying can run autonomously, but we need a lot of work to do to make that happen. But yes, I believe that's our future.

[Paul] When you say we need a lot to make it happen. Is it on the… we need broadband internet, we need access to a satellite, we need better technology, where do you see that we need the quickest improvement to get us where we're going.

[Jianfeng] Okay, yeah. You mentioned a good point. You know, the broadband is one of the challenges right now. We are lacking some coverage in a rural area, especially on farms. I know that the nation is invest a lot of money to improve the coverage or solve certain. And the biggest challenge  I'm looking for this autonomous system is, you know, the real reliability of the machine. We need a more tests because this is, you know, numerous. They don't have enough real experience on how to operate this. So, that's one of my research, is working with students to test this in a small farm and figure out a better protocol how to operate this autonomously?

[Paul]Well, I think at the farmers that I've ridden with that have - they sit in the cab, they hit the button, and we go down the row. And I think from a safety perspective, I think I feel better knowing that there is an operator within arm's reach to grab that wheel if need be. Why do we need to get away from that?

[Jianfeng] Okay, so, you know, that's a good question. So, you think about, you still need the one driver, especially you're driving the machinery, you know, you have one person operate it. In a lot of case, you can spend more time working on other important stuff. Like you can do more time to planning what to do for five minutes. So, you know, basically, you instead of holding one person sitting on a driver's seat, we can release the person. And even we can let this person operate multiple machinery in one field. Like, we're all talk about a fleet of autonomous tractors and working on fields. So, I guess why we need to remove that driver - I know people enjoy driving, but it's still in some case, you have to sit in there too long. You think about if you do a planting over day and a night that still cause a lot of challenges for your safety. For farmer, how they improve their wellbeing. Use autonomous system will release this kind of pressure in a sense that will tell you when you need to action The artificial intelligence will take care of the machinery, just mimic the human driver. So, we can release that person from sitting there. They can enjoy more of their personal life.

[Paul] You get to the labor issue. That is that is a big issue. And the wearing of the brain when you do sit for hundreds of acres a day because sometimes you can cover that. Alright, so my understanding, the Monarch MK 5 or the MK V is behind you, we're gonna get to tour that in just a minute. But this is the first autonomous electric tractor available. We've kind of danced a little bit around the whole electric side of things. What's the benefits of the electric tractor then?

[Jianfeng] So, the lack of electric tractor you know, compared to diesel tractor. The first thing is you can use the green energy rather than diesel, you have the greenhouse gas emission, this is more greener. So you can charge it with, for example solar panels, the wind mills to generate the green energy. The second part and enjoy is it has less noise, so when I drive it it’s more quiet and you don't have too much vibration, like the traditional small scale tractor like this. And you know, you can allow this person working in indoor environment for example, working with animals. hey more enjoy this part, we're seeing more friendly. And the third part of this, you know, battery. In a way we are allowed to use this as a power source for a lot of electronic device issues. For example, for me to do my research, I use this tractor as a like a battery bank, so they can charge my drone, they can charge all my equipment and they even went to some electrical activity in a uniform that are away from the grid that will be a benefit for farming.

[Paul] How long does this battery last? I mean, you mentioned it can power a lot of things in addition to the machine but are we having to pull over and plug in every eight hours? 12 hours?

[Jianfeng] Yes. So the battery has a limitation just like any electrical device. That's one of the challenges, even for a car. So this machine typically can last - it depends on the workload you have running - it may last 8 hours, for example. If you do it too late, maybe for six hours, it really depends on what kind of implements you put on it what kind of work it’s doing.

[Paul Yeager] Yes, I'm sitting here thinking about when you were talking, I'm like, well, let's see, I'm thinking about the drone that flies and that can only do so much or the other, it needs power and or my phone needs that. All right, I've held off long enough, I want a tour of this thing. And so if you're watching this on YouTube, forgive us a little bit, but we're going to take a tour of this machine. Give us a tour here, Dr. Zhou, what do we have?

[Jianfeng] So if you look at the tractor here, is looking down this part. This is a whole battery. It says, “Lithium Ion Technology.z’ And so this is a big battery, it's very heavy. That's the most of the weight of the tractor - is a whole slider which is the battery part. So that's a power source to replace the diesel engine. This is a middle scale tractor just like any other tractor look. The tires are similar. And there's no difference in the driving part So this is all you like an electric motor in  cars compared to, you know, other engine system. This is a four wheeled tractor. I want you to take a look at this part, the back of this tractor you can look, there's a hydraulic system. Like any tractor we use on a farm. So it has all kinds of connectors for your hydraulic improvement and there is a three point hinge,  you can hold all kinds of device attachment, it depends on what you need.

[Paul] And I see a PTO shaft in there too. Right,

[Jianfeng] Exactly. So there is a PTO shaft. It's just worked as a category one or category to implement. So, you can you can attach any of those as long as you are not over the payload of the tractor So, it has a limitation of the power compared to a traditional tractor but with the technology going on, this potentially is solved. You can use more battery and more power in the future. But you know, this is the typical setup of a electrical tractor, to make this smaller so it is easy to control. If you want to use a larger field this can a fleet of tractors working together. So in the future, that’s how you can make this work in a larger field more efficiently. 

Most of the technology is on the roof. If you look, the roof actually has a computer integrated inside of the roof and here is our different cameras. We can see there's one camera, there's our lights, here's some cameras is called the 3D cameras. So basically there are six cameras on the roof and there is a supercomputer on a roof too. There's the feature, just like other tractors, you can see there is a handle you can adjust the PTO, you can adjust the three points hence, there is the emergency stop and like I mentioned here is some outlet for all your power so you can you can use the you know in a field if you if you want to get 110 or 220 outlet of power. So this this tractor can provide those as a power source. So that's a charger point, it just like any tractor you use it. Any Tesla charger is a similar technology are using. So I'm climb onto the tractor and check this we'll see over the screen. I'm not sure if you can see it or not.

[Paul] I can see the monitor there. 

[Jianfeng] Yep, so that's our screen. So if you get your password you are able to see the driving mode. So, just like any computer, you just press the start button and instructions will be on. 

[Paul] Did you just turn it on? 

[Jianfeng] Yeah, I did.

[Paul] Hardly any noise.

[Jianfeng] Yeah, that's right. So the noise is from - it is charging the hydraulic pump. So it started charging, so it's getting ready to use. You know, you can see a lot of smart features, you can see all the connectivity, cellular, Wi Fi, GPS, and radio, it will connect to the it's called a station. Basically, you allow you to record all the images. Let's see…

[Paul] We've lost a little bit of your screen there. Can you show us a little bit of your touch screen again? There? There we go. Now that's one of those cameras.

[Jianfeng] Can you see it? 

[Paul] Yeah, now I can see it. 

[Jianfeng] I just caught you all different cameras. This is an implement. So if I have something attached, you can see that. You can see the back camera, a side camera - this a right side, and it is a front. So the camera itself is not only used to show you things, it is used as a safety feature. For example, if the camera  anybody in front, it will stop automatically. If this is setup, I cannot drive the tractor because there are objects in front of the tractor. It does not allow you to drive forward. If I see somebody on my side too close to the tractor it will stop. And, you know, if I see something like the attachment is missing, we'll stop. There's a lot of smart features just based on those cameras. And those cameras used to generate the 3D perception map. Basically is a 3D map, you can see everything around you and allow you to make make it - it kind of serves as additional eyes looking around, if there's something happening, it will stop. And you can adjust this, you don't need the tractor to do this setup, I can just use my cell phone to do this same setup. I can add a different implement. I can see where is my tractor. And in the future if I know some fields - we do some tests last last week - we can see the map is generated, you know, some work is being done in the past. And you can create a map. Just like you draw, you fly the drone. This track also allow you to design the path. So when you're, farming, you don't need the tool to go there driving a tractor, you just played through your app and the tractor can go there automatically.

[Paul] Now, I want to make sure when I'm driving here, I can manually override to drive. So if I wanted to, right now, I know you talked about the sensor that - it picks up that tripod in the front - say you move the tripod, would your machine be able… would you have to… how do you program it to get out of your parking lot there and move? Because that always to me is like what the human can do. Is this thing, best setup to work in a much bigger wide open space? Or can it also work real well in those tight spaces?

[Jianfeng] That is a good question we need to figure out. or example, in this very tight environment, I'm not sure if it will work or not because, for example, those objects are right in front of it. It is within safety range. It will not drive at all. So we probably need to plan a little bit - it’s more working better on the farm rather than in this environment. You know, we need to look into it. It’s new to me and I need more tools for the functionality. 

[Paul]  Let's see you again there, doctor. We gotta have a little more chat. It looks like you have a green machine back there. So what other research do you look to compare? I mean, what do you think that what's the goal of this research right now?

[Jianfeng] So we have different research, you know, one, like I mentioned, our student capstone project. They want to compare this electric autonomous tractor with a diesel tractor, similar size. How they can work in row crops for example, to do some tillage.hey want to understand the energy consumption, you know, the hours they put, how much savings they can have, the investment of return. So, those kinds of  research we want to do to understand how this can be used in Missouri farming or Midwestern farming system. And of course, we also want to understand how this can be used in animal production. We also want to learn this autonomy feature, how they can make it smart, like I mentioned, there's several cameras, those cameras are able to receive a plant, for example, are they able to detect the disease or a plant? Are they able to tell? Do I need different mechanical to spray on a plant to for pest control? Those kinds of features we're looking for.

[Paul] Well, speaking of the future, I've got you covering up the camera with your hand there. Gotta get you to move again. I can only kind of see you there. 

[Jianfeng] Oh, sorry. 

[Paul] There we go. We got you on that side. I mean, it's a good profile and all there, doctor. Okay, so you talk about improving things. One thing I had read about the tractor, the smaller tractor, I mean, we see these incredibly large implements now that are in the field. Is this something where we're going to need two to three of this size tractor to get something done? That could be done by a large machine? And is that going to be a cost prohibitive for some things? Or is it going to be beneficial because we're not putting the weight in the field? Help me out understanding the size of this machine. And what it's going to have to ramp up to be.

[Jianfeng] Yes, that's a good question. We really have some concern, if you compare to those larger machine. You know, a lot of things they cannot do that quick, as a larger machine. So no one test that, again, we just imagine this can be done. But that's one of the goals of doing research to find out. You know, costly is less effective, compared to a larger machine. We don't know yet. But you know, we anticipate this will work good for small or medium sized farmer. Those farmers, I would say, they are keen to looking for new technology. So this is the kind of new technology that is allowed to pass. Compared to the, you know, 10,000 acres farming, I'm not sure yet. Sorry.

[Paul] No, that's fine. And that's, I think, those questions that are being asked, and that's what you're going to hopefully get to. Let's go to one of the very first things you said, I asked you as a little boy growing up what did you envision? This you kind of said, science fiction. To me it's science fiction to have an autonomous tractor driving. Give me a map of 5 years, 10 years. How science fiction is agriculture gonna look?

[Jianfeng] Okay, so that's a lot. If you heard, there's a lot of initiative over the nation. University are trying to put a lot of research efforts in development called the farm of the future. All a lot of people also call it smart farming. So it's more sustainable, and is more effective, efficient, and you are climate smart. So in a 5 to 10 years, I will see, the farmer will turn to more smart. You don't need to go to field to do eyes, scouting. All the sensors, for example, drones, tractor with a sensor to help to detect the plants, what action they need to do. They can do autonomously, you know, I can see more automation system will be implemented in a field. And, you know, farmer will manage it easily. And they don't need to make a decision by themselves. But artificial intelligence system will help this. We'll see a lot of drone flying, autonomous tractor running.

[Paul] Well, and you know, and I've done interviews on this podcast before talking to the drones that fly and you kind of mentioned the, the scouting of the of the weed. I mean, they're doing that or they're distributing fertilizer or chemical via the air, and it's a field of drones that are all about so yeah, I think science fiction is going to be real here soon, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with there in Columbia.

[Jianfeng] Yeah, yes. That's right. So in the University of Missouri, we're also establishing a default the digital axis or the Extension Center. We're going to integrate all kinds of commercially available technology and the future technology. You know, we will push too hard in some of the research. We're going to claim this, implement some of this new technology, test the feasibility and document their benefit to the future farm.

[Paul] All right. Dr. Xu, thank you so much for your time and the tour. And I suppose I gotta let you get back to class. Thank you.

[Jianfeng] Thank you.

[Paul] My thanks to Dr. Jianfeng Zhou from the University of Missouri. Sorry, was just so easy. I even said so. Zoo like Mizzou, yes. New episodes each and every Tuesday, available on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Paul Yeager, thank you so very much for making this a part of your day. We'll see you next time.