The company pursues advances in AI-driven autonomous farming technology for agricultural machinery
Daedong secures government research project for the “Development of Level 4 Autonomous Working Tractor Technology”
The company pursues advances in AI-driven autonomous farming technology for agricultural machinery
- Selected as the lead company for R&D nationwide to commercialize Level 4 autonomous working tractors by March 2029
- R&D will focus on generating optimized routes in non-structured work areas, swarm navigation, measuring soil characteristics, and precision farming control using AI
- Daedong aims to narrow the technology gap with global companies like John Deere in agricultural machinery and autonomous operation to one to two years
Daedong (co-CEOs Kim Jun-Sik and Won Yu-Hyun), a leader and pioneer in future agriculture, announced on November 28 that it has secured a government project to advance autonomous farming machinery technology and develop AI-based future agricultural solutions, which could spark a major transition to AI in Korean agriculture.
The project, titled "Development of Level 4 Autonomous Tractor Technology Capable of Agricultural Environment Recognition and Error Response," was commissioned by the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) under the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy. The research and development period will run until March 2029. Daedong will form an industry-academia-research consortium with the Daedong AI Lab, Seoul National University, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Kyungpook National University, and the University of Florida (USA), and focus on five core R&D areas: (1) High-precision actuator control technology based on environmental perception; a (2) vision sensor-based environmental recognition system ("Smart Loop"); (3) optimized route generation and swarm control for non-structured work areas; (4) soil characteristic measurements and agricultural performance prediction models; and compiling aa (5) agricultural environment database in North America.
The company believes that its experience in being the first to commercialize Level 3 autonomous agricultural machinery in the business, its initiative to advance the robotization of agricultural machinery, its corporate goals and plans for developing autonomous farming machinery and agricultural robots, and its strategic investments in establishing related companies laid the foundation for securing its latest government project.
Through this project, Daedong will develop an on-device AI tractor capable of high-precision unmanned autonomous farming operations that can collect and learn data even in high-load farming environments. The tractor will be equipped to perform unmanned farming operations that maximize efficiency and increase productivity based on the overall farming environment in Korea, including the characteristics of the farmland, the type of attachment, and the location of obstacles. Furthermore, “swarm” operations, where multiple tractors perform various farming operations simultaneously in one farmland, will also be available on this tractor. In order to distribute autonomous agricultural tractors overseas, Daedong will work with the University of Florida in the United States to collect agricultural data such as videos and images and build a test bed for overseas verification, thereby laying the foundation for expanding into overseas markets.
With this project, Daedong expects to narrow the gap in autonomous operation technology with global agricultural machinery companies like John Deere and New Holland to one to two years and open up sales channels for high-horsepower autonomous tractors. The company says it wants to distribute not only fully autonomous agricultural machinery but also agricultural robots, thereby ushering in a new era of unmanned full-cycle open-field smart farming and contributing to the popularization and distribution of precision farming solutions.
Meanwhile, on November 13, Daedong unveiled an on-device AI tractor featuring vision sensors and AI imaging technology that it has been developing proactively in Gimje, Jeollabuk-do. The company demonstrated the agricultural machinery's ability to recognize external environments such as obstacles, farmland, and attachments on its own, proving its technological prowess in autonomous agricultural machinery.
