Market Information
Agriculture robots & drones to reach US $ 12bn by 2016
�e IDTechEx Research report “ Agricultural Robots and Drones 2016-2026 : Technologies , Markets , Players ” predicts that robotic technology will enter into different aspects of agriculture and change the way farming is done
�e report gives a detailed roadmap of how robotic technology will become the future of agrochemicals business and how it will modify the way we design agricultural machinery . It provides detailed technology roadmaps , technology- and territory-segmented ten-year market forecasts and comprehensive interviewbased company pro les , forecasting that agricultural robots and drones will reach US $ 12bn by 2026 .
Agricultural vehicles have been at the forefront of developing and adopting autonomous navigation technology . �e report notes that more than 320,000 tractors equipped with autosteer or tractor guidance technology will be sold in 2016 alone , rising to 660,000 / year in 2026 . �ese tractors use RTK GPS technology to autonomously follow pre-planned paths with cm-level accuracy , making agriculture the largest adopter of autonomous navigation .
Leading tractor companies worldwide have already demonstrated master-slave or ' followme ' unmanned autonomous tractors or load carts , the report states . In these arrangements , a manned operator supervises the movement of the leader tractor with others following suite . �is technological evolution is expected to further the notion that big is better because it enables further amplifying the productivity of the skilled driver via multiple slave or follower vehicles . �is arrangement will nd increasing use in large-scale crop eld farming .
�e report forecasts that fully and unmanned autonomous tractors will be the next evolutionary step . Multiple semi-commercial prototypes have already b een demonstrated by leading agricultural machinery companies . �e tractor will be equipped with a variety of overlapping sensors such as LIDAR , RADAR , and sonar to provide autonomous navigation in the absence of GPS signal together with collision avoidance .
IDTechEx Research forecasts that sales of fully autonomous tractors will start only from 2021 / 2022 onwards , reaching more than US $ 200mn in 2026 .
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November - December 2016
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