LS Mtron发布韩国首个双拖拉机编队自动作业技术

LS Mtron, an industrial machinery maker, said on the 31st that it has developed South Korea's first convoy driving technology allowing a single operator to run two tractors at once.
The technology lets an operator riding in one tractor monitor the position and working status of a second tractor in real time while the two machines carry out autonomous tasks in tandem. The manned tractor leads the operation, and the unmanned tractor follows by sharing route and task data. The system has completed field validation on the MT9 and MT7 autonomous tractors.
Convoy driving takes two forms depending on the task. In tandem convoy driving, the lead tractor rakes rice straw while the trailing tractor follows at a set distance to bale it, completing in a single pass what would otherwise require two operators. In parallel convoy driving, the two tractors share their positions in real time and travel side by side to cover large areas quickly, a mode suited to time-sensitive work such as sowing and harvesting.
LS Mtron applied high-precision satellite navigation that corrects positioning errors in real time, achieving a margin of error within 2 centimeters at a standstill and up to 7 centimeters while working. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and a proprietary algorithm allow the two tractors to adjust speed and spacing in real time. In field measurements, rotary tilling to break up hardened soil across 600 pyeong took 8 minutes and 51 seconds before the system was applied and 5 minutes and 15 seconds afterward, cutting working time by about 40%.
The technology was developed to address an aging rural population and labor shortages. According to the Korea Rural Economic Institute, the country's farming population fell to 1.98 million last year, dropping below 2 million for the first time, and is projected to shrink to 1.94 million this year. Farmland per farmer, by contrast, is set to rise 1.8% from a year earlier to 0.77 hectares this year.
"The technology we have accumulated since commercializing autonomous tractors in 2021 has led to this convoy driving system," LS Mtron President Shin Jae-ho said. "We will continue to roll out new technologies and usher in an era of unmanned farming."