John Deere has unveiled its autonomous, zero-turn, stand-on mower at CES this week. Designed for commercial mowing, the autonomous commercial mower leverages the same camera technology as other Deere autonomous machines, but on a reduced scale since the machine has a smaller footprint. With two cameras on the front, left, right, and rear, 360-degree coverage is achieved, and staff can focus on other aspects of the job.
Building on Deere's autonomous technology first revealed at CES 2022, the company's second-generation autonomy kit combines advanced computer vision, AI, and cameras to help the machines navigate their environments.
Jahmy Hindman, senior vice president and chief technology officer presented at a Deere press conference at CES in which the mower (as well as other autonomous machines) were revealed. He talked about how autonomy can help set the landscaping industry up for success.
"Commercial landscapes, or public and private landscapes require a lot of care," He said. "We've been in the business of making lot equipment for over 60 years. Think of all the green open spaces like office parks and industrial complexes that you see on a regular basis. Those places need to be mowed every week, and they can be massive spaces. For people to enjoy these areas, it means they usually need to be tended to early in the morning. And finding people to do the work is challenging, especially when there are so many other things that need to get done every day. From caring for the trees and other landscaping activities, our customers in the commercial mowing industry compete in an intense bid process to win their business."
Jahmy Hindman speaks to the crowd at CES 2025.Total Landscape Care
Hindman continued: "The key to winning the bid is being able to mow the property throughout the complete year. So when those customers inevitably face short staffed and workforce challenges, autonomy provides it with a solution."
According to Hindman, the mower features four pairs of stereo cameras, one in the front, one in the back, and one on each side.
"They're positioned as high as possible on the machine to give us a complete 360 degree view around the mower," he explained.
The mower is also fully electric. So in addition to reducing emissions, it's also reducing noise pollution for people who live and work nearby, Hindman added.
The new autonomous mower is on display at the Deere booth at CES 2025.Total Landscape Care
Select machines will be autonomy ready from the factory and the second-generation perception system will be available as a retrofit kit for certain existing machines, providing customers with multiple paths to adoption based on where they are in their technology journey.
The machines are managed via John Deere Operations Center Mobile, the company’s cloud-based platform. By swiping left to right to start, the machine can be started once placed in the appropriate spot. Through the app, users also have access to live video, images, data and metrics, and the ability to adjust various factors like speed. In the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, users will be notified remotely so they can make necessary adjustments.
The fully autonomous machines will continue to be on display until January 10, 2025 at John Deere's CES booth (#5016) located in West Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
