Cognitive Technologies, an established Russian software corporation, is developing one of the world’s most advanced autonomous AI-based driving systems for farming equipment. Under the brand ‘Cognitive Agro Pilot,’ this system was used across 35 regions of Russia when reaping the 2020 harvest.
“Between June and October 2020, over 350 autonomous harvesters fitted with [our] solutions farmed over 160,000 hectares of field and harvested more than 720,000 metric tons of crops,” says Sber, which backs the company.
The harvested grain crops included wheat, soybeans, barley, oats, sorghum, buckwheat, corn, sunflower, etc. in a variety of Russian regions and districts around the cities of Belgorod, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Kurgan, Kursk, Penza, Rostov, Stavropol, Tambov and Tomsk.
Cognitive Technologies claims that the businesses involved in these operations were able to save an aggregate of over 500 million rubles (around $6.5 million at the current exchange rate) thanks to the use of these unmanned technologies. These amounts were saved on fuel and related materials as well as due to “shorter harvesting time, a more active use of harvesters, fewer human errors, optimization of business processes, and other parameters.”
Cognitive Agro Pilot is touted as “the world’s first system that ‘sees’ and ‘understands’ what’s lying ahead.” This is “an advantage over other solutions that usually utilize a raft of tools for their control models: laser scanners and stereo cameras, GPS navigation with RTK positioning, etc.”
When controlling a harvester by the Cognitive Agro Pilot system, the edge capture is “stable at no more than 10 cm, which lets you avoid unnecessary passes and fuel losses.”
Meanwhile, with the autopilot mode on, “the setup avoids obstacles and stops when detecting a threat of collision with other equipment or people.”
In September 2020, Cognitive Agro Pilot received the ‘Overall Harvesting Innovation of the Year’ award at Agriculture Technology Breakthrough Awards 2020. In 2019, the Russian startup won the AVT ACES AWARD, which was organized by the US Autonomous Vehicle Technology magazine.
“A few years back, artificial intelligence in agriculture was a technology much talked about, but there were no practical examples of its widespread adoption in Russia,” notes Anatoly Popov, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Sber, an investor in Cognitive Technologies. “Now, with the first harvesting campaign with smart combines completed, we can say with confidence that the future is becoming a reality before our eyes.”
Popov believes that “the Cognitive Agro Pilot system has the potential to save the domestic agro-industrial complex billions of rubles,” taking into account Russia’s rank among the leading countries in terms of agricultural production.
Cognitive Technologies believes that “one harvester in ten used in Russia will be unmanned in the next three years.”
Founded in 1993, Cognitive Technologies offers a variety of components for unmanned vehicles and remote control systems, including AI-based driver assistance systems. In 2018 the company claimed to have created the world’s first 4D radar for driverless tech.
The company is also participating in the development of Russia’s first fully autonomous tram.
