
Google didn’t lead the self-driving vehicle revolution, John Deere did - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/22/google-didnt-lead-the-self-driving-vehicle-revolution-john-deere-did/
======
da_chicken
While I certainly agree that self-driving farm equipment is revolutionary, I'd
argue that Google's technological advances are in the field of being able to
understand how to drive on a road which marked for humans to drive on, and
which is simultaneously in use by human drivers as well.

I'm sure that there are problems and issues which arise from navigating a
field and manipulating whatever equipment you've got for whatever task you're
working on that I'm just not fully appreciating. However, I really question if
that task is anywhere near as complex as safely navigating traffic while
obeying all the laws of the road when you can't even be sure of the state of
the road you'll be travelling on.

It's just a totally different problem being solved. This is apples and
oranges.

~~~
higherpurpose
This smacks of "Apple didn't invent tablets, Microsoft did!!" kind of
thinking.

Who cares who _invented_ it, especially if they were incapable of bringing the
technology to the mass market themselves? The real heroes are those who make
it useful for the mass market, not those who keep it on the 8th shelf in their
"R&D Lab" or even those who manage to sell 10,000 units a year globally.

Also, as you say, there's a _big difference_ between "self-driving farm
vehicles" and self-driving road cars, just like there' a big difference
between an unusable 2h battery life and $2000 XP "tablet" from the 2000
compared to the 2010 iPad. In other words, there was been a lot more
"invention" added to the iPad since the Microsoft tablets appeared as well.

~~~
vinay427
Exactly, which is why people who claim that Apple invented tablets still
deserve to be corrected.

~~~
mwfunk
That's OK, I'm sure when you delightfully correct people about this oversight,
you don't skim over things like the Newton or the Palm Pilot, or the prop from
2001 that was hugely inspirational, and that you go into great detail about
all the technical and usability differences between iPads and early-2000s
tablet PCs. I'm sure you give fair and equal coverage to all of these topics
when you are correcting people, since you seem to care about history and
stuff. Just giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

~~~
shiftpgdn
I bought a Compaq TC1000 when I graduated highschool for $750~. It was one of
the very first "Tablet" PCs. It received a LOT of very positive attention when
I used it on campus in college. It was a great machine and was very usable
even with limited OS support.

Microsoft had a marketing problem (they still do) and not a usability problem.

------
peter303
DARPA jump-started the industry with their three autonomous vehicle
competitions a decade ago. Most of the entrants were university mechanical
engineering departments. No one came close to completing the first challenge.
But they got pretty good by the third one. Google and the auto indutry
continued funding thereafter.

~~~
martincmartin
The DARPA grand challenge was certainly a pivotal event, but I wouldn't say it
jump-started the industry. The two biggest teams in the second race, from CMU
and Stanford, were both spinoffs of the Field Robotics Center at CMU, which
had been doing this for a long time:

[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tjochem/nhaa/Journal.html](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tjochem/nhaa/Journal.html)
[http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript705.htm](http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript705.htm)

Disclosure: I was a grad student at CMU at the time, in the building, and saw
a lot of this up close.

------
gnu8
John Deere does not receive any credit for any innovations they may have made
in the area of self driving vehicles until they acknowledge the right of
vehicle owners to service their own machines and release all required
documentation, source code, and diagnostic tools to facilitate this.

~~~
codezero
I have a hunch future retail self driving cars will have the same
restrictions, unfortunately.

~~~
stephengillie
Who wants to actually own their own bare metal anymore? Why do you want to be
tied to this specific server or car, this specific package of molecules?

The SPSD Car[1] will not be something that can be _owned_ by individuals. You
can use your smartphone to request a pickup, which will be fulfilled by any of
a number of nearby cars. You'll lease a license to be transported in one car,
and the app will automatically transfer that license to the car that's
fulfilling your trip.

Your Leased License to be Transported in a Car will only apply for the
duration of the trip, and gives you no rights or responsibilities to the
underlying vehicle.

[1] (Solar Powered Self Driving)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
We are a long way from that. In a cab, its somebody's job to keep it clean and
safe. An auto-car may arrive with dog droppings, vomit, trash in the back seat
with slashed upholstery and condom wrappers. How is that going to be managed?

~~~
enjo
I think this isn't such a big issue. I use Car2Go all the time, never had any
of those things in a car I drove.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Maybe its different when you're driving, vs chilling in the back of an auto-
car for a half-hour with your sweety. I think young folks will be very
creative filling the time.

~~~
stephengillie
I think you're obsessed with this one exception. So I'll state your concern
outright: How do you prevent people from having sex in an auto-car?

Well, how do you prevent people from having sex in rental cars? First, people
that can get a rental car usually can get more comfortable accommodations for
other activities. Second, the rental car is only in the renter's control for a
short duration, and that duration isn't cheap. Third, the rental agency will
hold the renter responsible for any damages caused by this activity.

I'm sure that Zipcar, Car2Go, Enterprise, Avis, and others have solutions for
these situations.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its not that one thing - its a stand-in for the issue of idle folks in a
private space, that they don't own or have responsibility for.

There's no other transportation option in existence that combines privacy and
anonymity without the requirement to drive. Nookie is only the beginning of
what idle folks will get up to.

Rental cars are not the same - we're supposed to be using auto-cars as an
everyday thing, to get to work or school or shopping or anything really. Not
just on a business trip.

Actually, I can think of one similar place where people have time on their
hands in a private space - public restroom stalls. And look how wonderfully
that works out for everybody.

------
david_b
I'd say Daimler and co. got there first:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Prometheus_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Prometheus_Project)

Google has obviously taken taken that _a lot_ further (no driver reacting
every 9km)

> "We kind of laugh when we see news stories about self-driving cars, because
> we've had that for years," Poole said.

Yup, no wonder he is a farmer (to be fair: if you're running a tractor at 2 am
you may well imagine there to be heavy traffic on the field...).

~~~
kriro
Daimler is also doing quite a bit with self driving trucks. I'd guess they
have to be a leader in that domain. Admittedly they weren't really on my radar
until the recent news about their tests in Nevada.

------
seren
From a layman perspective, it sounds much easier to automate a vehicle moving
in a field, where you have a low chance of hitting a pedestrian or a cyclist.

~~~
bsbechtel
To be fair, they also started working on the problem before Google even
existed, with technology more primitive than Google's first servers.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Yes, I know of professors who were doing field trials of self-driving tractors
30 years ago, and I'm sure they weren't the first.

~~~
acadien
The mining industry has dreamed of self driving vehicles to replace humans in
dangerous work conditions for ages.

~~~
cake
Nothing new here : [http://mining.sandvik.com/en/products/equipment/mine-
automat...](http://mining.sandvik.com/en/products/equipment/mine-automation-
systems/equipment-automation)

------
Coincoin
Driving a car is a social exercise. The challenge is making something navigate
through human chaos, not make it move.

Even the article itself hints that comparing the two is kind of stupid:
"[...]where there are few pesky pedestrians or federal rules to get in the
way." and then immediately proceeds laughing at the general population
ignorance because farmers did it first.

I remember when I was a child, my father explained to me that depressing the
right pedal makes the car go forward, the left one makes it stop and this
round thing makes it turn. "WOW! Easy!" I exclaimed, "I know to drive now!"
Yeah right.

Elevators are automated. Subways are automated. Even mother fucking planes can
fly and land themselves (with the right equipment). Yup those giant flying
monsters containing hundreds of human souls got automated before our cars.

But wait, Google is stupid because it didn't do it first.

EDIT: missing sentence

------
adaml_623
How about we all just agree this is a click-bait article and we've all gone
chomp on the hook.

I don't want to write 'who cares' but realistically neither John Deer or
Google did. There were gifted individuals at both companies who wrote the code
and developed the hardware and one day someone will write a book and it might
be an interesting read.

To argue for JD or Google is just playing into the marketers hands.

/rant

------
jfoster
I think a lot of the commenters here are correct in pointing out that the
problem John Deere have solved is very different from the problem that Google,
Tesla, Uber are trying to solve.

That said, I think there is a "human acceptance" piece necessary for
autonomous vehicles to be allowed on roads. A lot of people are going to fear,
dislike, or be otherwise opposed to sharing the road with autonomous vehicles.
A lot of people simply don't believe that it is possible for an autonomous
vehicle to handle certain driving situations. To be able to point to tractors
driving themselves around fields for the past X years is valuable in getting
humans to accept robotic cars.

~~~
aidos
It's useful but I guess people will just raise that same reservation - just
because they work in the field...blah blah blah.

My guess is that insurance will force people's hands in the switch. Most
accidents on the road are due to human error (I assume, or rather had there
not been human involvement the situation could have been avoided). Let's
assume that self driving technology reaches the safety level that most of us
here believe it will. Insurers, hedging against risk will have to financially
penalise manual driving, since it will carry a much higher risk.

Hopefully that takes the irrational opposition out of the equation and let's
the raw statistics take charge :)

------
Animats
Self-driving tractors are incredibly dumb. They just follow a predefined path
using GPS. Most don't even have any obstacle sensing. They probably should at
least have a basic obstacle detection radar, but at present, they don't.

I saw the original John Deere differential GPS prototype tractor in use at
Stanford many years ago. There used to be an empty field next to the Stanford
horse barn where they tested. It's now a parking lot.

------
bsbechtel
This article is giving credit to a market leader, but I'm pretty sure there
were a number of GPS technology companies and precision ag startups that were
working on automating farm equipment first. John Deere has many times been a
late adopter in terms of technology, waiting to see what pans out in the
market, then relying on the penetration of their dealer network to distribute
proven technologies to a much wider audience.

~~~
JamisonM
Yes, this a ridiculous PR puff-piece. JD saw something coming and got into the
business along with a bunch of other companies. There are a lot of competing
GPS technology companies that make products just as good if not better and
sell well in the absence of the advantages that JD had from the start.

Hemisphere GNSS, whose (Outback) products I use, has a superior product in my
opinion and started a few years before Deere got interested in the business at
all.

~~~
bsbechtel
Or just journalistic naivete and laziness of not thoroughly researching a
sector. It looks like the author normally covers consumer technology, so she
probably doesn't know much about the agriculture or GPS industries. I would
give her the benefit of the doubt of not knowing (which in journalism isn't
really an excuse), but either way it's bad journalism.

~~~
mavhc
True of 99% of journalism, you know if you read articles about your field of
expertise how wrong they are, they're just as wrong about everything else.

------
joshstrange
How about no.... Driving a tractor through a predetermined path in a
predictable pattern is no where near the same as driving on our roads with
human error and the like. Also I'm not about to get behind a company that
won't let you service your own machinery.

------
ksk
Instead of self-driving cars, I'd say focus on eliminating the need for "going
somewhere"/vehicles in general. Would be so cool if we could just 'beam' in to
work. 3D virtual presence. But hey, its not my money they're investing.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
How about 3D bio-printing you at work? Oh but at the end of the day, do you
get rid of the copy, or get rid of you? Could be some trouble either way.

------
dm2
John Deere didn't invent the technology though, Autonomous Solutions Inc.
(ASI) did. They partnered in ~2000.

[http://www.asirobots.com/news/](http://www.asirobots.com/news/)

[http://www.asirobots.com/farming/](http://www.asirobots.com/farming/)

[http://www.asirobots.com/products/mobius/](http://www.asirobots.com/products/mobius/)

~~~
mojoB
ASI were hardly the first, and Deere had their AutoTrac system before they
started working with ASI.

> The Beeline Navigator was developed in 1993 by Australian engineer, Rob
> Mailer. [1]

[1]
[http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/mac...](http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/machinery/general-
news/agsystems-beeline-to-world-sales/33130.aspx)

------
raldi
Comparing this tractor to a self-driving car is like calling someone an ace
pilot even though they don't know how to take off or land.

------
fixermark
Spot-on but unimportant.

"Apple didn't lead the mobile device revolution. Blackberry did."

Technologies succeeding in the gauntlet of consumer electronics makes a bigger
splash in public media---for obvious reasons---than those same technologies
applied to the problems of specific trades.

------
vmorgulis
In the most recent user guide (2013), they talk about "mapping".

[https://stellarsupport.deere.com/en_US/support/pdf/om/en/PFP...](https://stellarsupport.deere.com/en_US/support/pdf/om/en/PFP13445_2630_userguide.pdf)

You can record a map with the GPS and replay it. It's a little bit like
waypoints for drones.

There are other companies that make driverless tractors:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_tractor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_tractor)

It also reminds me the machines in Interstellar (the indian drone that can fly
10 years and the tractor).

------
aylons
Not actually. John Deer doest not build vehicles, he builds machinery.

John Deer machines work in a strict set of environments, and although they may
be very sophisticated and react to a range of adverse situations, these
situations are still much more predictable and the route much better known in
advance than roads and streets.

If the autonomous vehicle problem were dealing with different roads, pavements
and other pre-programmed vehicles, the self driving car would be a thing from
the 80s, together with the robot car welder.

------
anigbrowl
Will someone who works at Amazon and reads HN please ask Jeff Bezos to tell
the Washington Post to grow out of this smartass fake journalism? Most people
are well aware that agribusiness depends heavily on automation. Most people
are equally well aware that it's a lot easier to drive around a field when you
are the only thing in it than to drive on a public road. That's why you only
need a driving license for the latter case.

The entire article is one giant straw man fallacy.

~~~
fredkbloggs
> Most people are well aware that agribusiness depends heavily on automation.

While it doesn't necessarily invalidate your criticism, this couldn't be less
true. Most people in the Washington Post's reader base have exactly zero
awareness of agriculture, full stop. Food comes in a box they buy at the
supermarket, and that's the extent of their knowledge. If they have any
thoughts beyond that, it's probably either an understanding of farming they
got from a quaint children's book, or some kind of poorly-reasoned
Monsanto/GMO FUD they heard at a fashionable dinner party. The idea that they
know what kind of ag equipment is on the market, what it does, how it works,
or what it costs is ludicrous.

------
dj_doh
Last time I checked I didn't see any farming in my local main street. Not sure
to what extent technology from John Deere can be used for public vehicle. May
be not much.

------
roel_v
What's especially laughable is the article's mention of robotic lawn mowers. I
happen to have bought one today, and those things (although admittedly there
are models that are more intelligent) just ride around randomly until they hit
a hard object or the perimeter, which is signaled by a wire that is dug into
the ground. An 'autonomous vehicle' this is not (or only for the most basic
definition of the concept).

~~~
thomasfoster96
The way robotic lawn mowers work sounds awfully like the beginner LEGO
Mondstorms projects.

------
melling
This is an apples to oranges comparison of technologies.

------
gech
>But another is pure necessity: There's a labor crunch in rural America -
young people move to the cities, leaving the average age of U.S. farmers at
58, according to the Department of Agriculture. Similar forces are pushing
self-driving tech into other industrial sectors at a pace that outstrips the
consumer market. >

Oh sure, that's the reason. All the job seekers dried up.

------
hellbanner
Many years ago, I dreamed of huge roadways with wi-fi embedded in the road.
Cars would broadcast their destination and the network would adjust the speed
of all cars to facilitate a smooth entry to the freeway and subsequent
navigation.

Self-driving cars are really cool. However, if every car is trying to optimize
for itself then traffic will still be an issue.

------
cheetos
Forgive my laziness, but the last time I did any long research about self-
driving cars, I understood that the problem of night-time driving and driving
in precipitation still hadn't been solved. Anyone know if this is still the
case?

------
callesgg
It is more comparable to automated lawnmowers, than it is to selfdriving cars.

------
funkyy
So did any of Google Moon-shoots actually had ANY impact on society so far
besides being a cool news story? It looks like most of their cool projects got
to the point, where they stale and cannot move ahead.

------
raverbashing
To be more clear, here's what JD equipment doesn't have to worry about that
Google's does

\- Pedestrians

\- Other vehicles and obstacles (and automatically detecting them)

\- Roads

\- Traffic laws

JDs tractors are choreographed, it's not really 'self-driving'

~~~
agumonkey
Or even speed. What's the average speed of a tractor in exercise ? 15 mph ?[1]
anticipation need, which was already pretty low in a field, gets even closer
to zero.

[1] quick googling says some countries impose speed limit of 20mph but I don't
know if it's on public roads and not private land.
[http://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/road-rules-for-tractors-in-
th...](http://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/road-rules-for-tractors-in-the-uk-and-
europe.htm)

~~~
raverbashing
Probably on public roads, speed is lower when harvesting

~~~
agumonkey
So I fail to see what Deere did. A 10mph, pretty stable, on mostly flat
(curved, but locally flat) land, with almost nothing of its size to interfere
(won't a beef move away if a tractor aims at him ?), except avoiding the
occasional tree .. I fail to see what problem they had.

------
edward
Self-driving tractor in 1978:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3xS3eIHzLk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3xS3eIHzLk)

------
anon4
Sure, but none of the engineers who work for John Deere would ever be allowed
to publish their developments, nor would they get any public recognition for
them.

------
gukov
Time to buy $DE

