February 2002

Liability Problems for Autonomous Equipment?

Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer, SSMC Director

Introduction

Innovators are often short sighted. They often want new technology to do exactly what the old technology did, only better and cheaper. They are often slow to realize the potential of the new technology to do things that the old could not. For example, early tractor manufacturers wanted a machine that was stronger than a team of horses and cheaper to keep, but which would essentially perform the same job as flesh and blood horsepower. It took them some time to realize that they were not bound by the limitations of animal traction that could provide only draft pulling power and turning power through ground drive wheels. Tractors not only had more power, but more easily controllable mechanical power (e.g., power take off (PTO), hydraulics). Many of the cropping systems developments of the 20^th century would have been much more difficult if they had to depend on the power from ground drive wheels. For example, no-till planting is possible with horses (some of the Amish do it), but it is doubtful if it would have ever been invented without the power of tractors and the ease of hydraulics.

One of the next innovations in the precision farming line-up may be falling prey to this pitfall. Reports of autonomous tractors and other equipment are starting to appear in the farm and business press. Usually, the description is of a conventional machine where the driver has been replaced by some combination of computers, global positioning system (GPS) and electronic sensors. The benefits of this approach usually focus on higher productivity because:

? The computer does not get sick or tired and does not need time off,

? it can operate with closer tolerances (so every round is at full field capacity), fewer errors and at higher speeds, and

? because machines can be made lighter and cheaper if the drivers seat, controls and cab can be eliminated.

The objective of this article is to look at the pitfalls of this approach and to consider some alternatives.

Legal Liability

One of the key disadvantages of driverless machines for agriculture is liability. Unlike factory robots, agricultural machines must work in public. One news report of a malfunctioning machine that crashes into a neighbor's yard or of a machine that fails to recognize a dog or child and runs it over would create a firestorm of negative publicity. This type of accident is not new. Unfortunately, every year pets and children are hurt by tractors and other equipment. What is different for autonomous equipment is the perception that the accident was in part due the lack of a human to intervene.

If autonomous equipment becomes commercially available, insurance companies would probably insist that a driver be present, if only to shut off the switch in case of a malfunction. This reemphasized that a driver would greatly reduce the benefits of this technology. Even if the driver is only present for safety reasons, he or she can still get sick, tired or need time off. If the driver is reinstated, a seat, cab and controls must be provided.

The liability issue is really an aspect of community acceptance of this technology. Community acceptance is an issue with all new technology and tends to be more important where the new technology forces major changes in long established ways of life and/or seems to present some physical danger. Not everyone greeted the arrival of automobiles and tractors with open arms. Motorized vehicles scared horses. Some people thought they were a safety hazard. Horse breeders quickly recognized that motorized transport would put them out of business. Today, new hog facilities are very efficient in turning corn into pork. Financing is available. The greatest challenge that investors who wish to build new hog facilities often find themselves facing is

convincing the surrounding community to let them build.

Would people eventually become accustomed to autonomous farm equipment? Over time, they would probably become more accustomed, but perhaps only after insisting on a variety of safety measures. In addition to a rider to hit the off switch, there might be legal requirements that fields farmed with remote control equipment be fenced to prevent children from straying into the path of the equipment. This would make the driverless equipment in the field more like the robot in the factory. For high value crops, such as the biotech pharmacy crops, extra safety measures might be affordable, but for bulk commodities, they may drive the cost out of reach.

The other problems associated with autonomous farm equipment can probably be overcome with technology. Better sensors and controls would allow the equipment to deal with plugging and malfunctions on its own. In addition to operating equipment, drivers are also collecting information (e.g., weed, disease and insect problems, soil issues, stand establishment). If they are no longer going across the field regularly, other ways need to be found to collect non-standard data. Better sensors would help. Improved scouting programs would be essential. Nevertheless, we will never have a sensor for every possible problem; a periodic human presence in the field is likely to be necessary for the near future.

Alternative Paradigm

To a large extent, the liability and safety issue is one of perception. It is generated by a concern for large equipment working in public with no visible human guidance. Size is an issue here. A lovable R2D2 type robot working in the field would generate far less concern than a remote controlled 4WD tractor with a 40-foot implement traveling at 10 mph. The irony of this observation is that once the driver is removed, bigger farm equipment is no longer obviously better. One of the main advantages of motorized mechanization was that it allowed one person to accomplish more. The more power the driver could control and the wider the equipment, the more one person could do in a given time and the lower the labor cost. With computer control, one person could supervise a swarm of smaller machines just as easily as one person could supervise one large one. The ideal autonomous equipment may be more like a rototiller than a 4WD tractor.

Imagine an agricultural system in which most physical work is done by small robot like machines, “droids” if we want to use the Star Wars terminology. Each field could have one or more depending on its size. The machines could stay in the field for the whole season stored in a shed in the corner of the field and set in motion by commands from the farm office, or perhaps from a computer in the pickup.

For very small fields (e.g. in suburbanized areas), the machines would be small enough to load in the back of a pickup. A common farm management chore would be to bring the machines out to new fields and set them to work.

The optimal area that each machine would cover at one pass is a technical question that would probably depend on the crop and the equipment design, but for row crops it is possible that the machine would work on one or two rows at a time. The machine does not tire or need breaks, so it could work day and night giving close attention to each row. This could be the organic farmer’s dream, essentially allowing gardening on a mass scale. Weeds could be pulled or hoed. Insects picked off one-by-one and crushed.

This type of technology would have enormous implications for farm operations. Imagine planting time on a large midwestern farm. One farm operation may have hundreds (or thousands) of machines planting simultaneously. They would take seed, fertilizer and pesticides (if they are still used) from holding bins in their fields. Human intervention is needed in several areas: keeping the machines running, supplying them with inputs and especially deciding what the machines should be doing.

The technology also has implications for the value of farmland. The productivity of the soil would continue to be very important, but the size and shape of the fields would become less important. The machines could easily work around trees, rocks, ponds and other obstacles. Small suburban fields could be worked almost as efficiently as large tracts of land.

Conclusions

Autonomous farm equipment may be in our future, but there are important reasons for thinking that it may not be just replacing the human driver with a computer. It may mean a rethinking of how crop production is done. In particular, once the driver is not needed, bigger is no longer better. Crop production may be done better and cheaper with a swarm of small machines than with a few large ones. One of the advantages of the smaller machines is that they may be more acceptable to the non-farm community.