RESEARCH NEWS
Startup collaborators for John Deere
Deere & Company is a global specialist in the delivery of agricultural, turf, construction and forestry equipment. It recently announced the names of six companies chosen for its‘ 2025 Startup Collaborator’ programme.
The John Deere Startup Collaborator programme was launched in 2019 to enhance and deepen the company’ s interaction with startup companies whose technology could add value for agricultural and construction customers. The companies participating in the 2025 Startup Collaborator include:
■ Array Labs: A space technology company building the first constellation designed for frequent, high-quality 3D imaging of Earth’ s entire surface.
■ Landscan: A digital twin company fusing proprietary soil and remote sensing signals to generate analytical insights for the optimisation and management of land and its resources.
■ LIDWAVE: A pioneering 4D LiDAR-ona-chip developer, providing sensing for advanced automation, mapping and inspection applications.
■ Presien: A physical AI company partnering with OEMs to deliver plugand-play, on-machine solutions designed to transform worksite safety and productivity.
John Deere’ s autonomous 9RX Tractor for large-scale agriculture.
■ ReSim: An embodied AI testing company that automates hardware, simulation and replay evaluations, designed to unlock safer, faster development for autonomy.
■ Witricity: Offering wireless charging technology for commercial and passenger vehicles, eliminating the hassle of plug-in charging and setting the stage for future autonomy.
“ We’ re thrilled to welcome the seventh cohort of startups to our John Deere Startup Collaborator Programme. This programme is all about fostering innovation and collaboration. Each startup in this cohort brings unique technologies aimed at tackling real challenges in agriculture and construction. By working together and learning from one another, we will explore new technologies that can benefit our customers,” said Colton Salyards, Principal Corporate Development, John Deere.
Autonomous technology launches
In January this year, John Deere revealed several new autonomous machines during a press conference at CES 2025 to support customers in agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The company’ s second-generation autonomy kit combines advanced computer vision, AI and cameras to help the machines navigate their environments. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, common across them all is the lack of skilled labour.
Its autonomous systems included the 9RX Tractor for large-scale agriculture, the 5ML Orchard Tractor for air blast spraying, the 460 P-Tier Autonomous Articulated Dump Truck( ADT) for quarry operations and the Autonomous Battery Electric Mower for commercial landscaping.
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 its customers with multiple paths to adoption. The machines are managed via John Deere Operations Centre Mobile, the company’ s cloud-based platform. n
www
. deere. com
Manufacturing in the circular economy
The DaRe-X co-innovation joint project in Finland aims to promote the transition of the manufacturing industry to a circular economy through practical examples and applicable tools. Implementing the circular economy in many industrial products is challenging due to lack of expertise, suitable data and business models. The DaRe-X project will therefore focus on this issue for the heavy machinery industries.
“ In the recently launched project, we will experiment with two proof-of-concept demonstrators; a retrofit case of log crane and a new install base Volvo EC25 excavator. Digital twins and models will be used as foundations to develop methodologies to assess the suitability of different Re-X approaches and quantify their suitability for the selected case,” confirmed Professor Emil Kurvinen, Principal Investigator in the University of Oulu’ s research unit.
“ Circularity is still in practice mostly implemented with recycling of materials in the end-of-life of the product, and the higherlevel Re-X processes such as refurbishing, remanufacturing and repurposing have not been developed systematically,” added Professor Mika Horttanainen from LUT University. For business renewal, the project will create new data sources, such as Re-X processes and technologies based on the lifecycle data of digital twins.
The large interdisciplinary research project involves six LUT research groups from sustainability science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and industrial engineering and management, as well as the machine and vehicle engineering( MVD) research group and Centre for Wireless Communications research group at the University of Oulu.
The new Re-X processes will be implemented in participating OEM companies; Glaston, Konecranes and Mitsubishi Logisnext Europe. Atostek and Kaltiot Technologies will support the transition. Other business partners involved in the project are solution providers Sofidium, following members Danfoss Editron and Mirka as well as their leading company ecosystems. The results of the project are expected to have a broad impact on the“ creation of new partnerships, the creation of unique solutions and the development of companies’ competitiveness and business growth in global markets.”
The total public research budget for the project, funded by Business Finland, is approximately 1.9 million euros. The project duration is three years— it started in the last quarter of 2024. n
www. oulu. fi / en
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