The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd. has announced the Case IH Autonomous Concept Tractor as one of the winners of this year’s prestigious Good Design Award. The Museum’s annual GOOD DESIGN® Awards recognize the most innovative and cutting-edge industrial, product, and graphic designs produced around the world.
Case IH first unveiled the world’s first high horsepower, cabless autonomous concept tractor at the Farm Progress Show in 2016, marking a revolutionary step forward in tractor design. The tractor was designed by CNH Industrial’s in-house Industrial Design Center and based on the current Case IH Magnum row crop tractor. The concept’s design was focused on both form and function, reimagining the tractor for a future autonomous era by eliminating the traditional operator cab.
“This award marks a satisfying conclusion to the celebration of our 175th anniversary,” says Andreas Klauser, Case IH Brand President. “The autonomous concept tractor is perhaps the best illustration of how we are living up to the anniversary’s tagline – Celebrating the Past by Looking Toward the Future.”
After the reveal at the Farm Progress Show in August of 2016, the tractor was shown at trade fairs in France, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. “Over the past year, we have used this concept tractor as a way to kick off a dialog with our customers as to what the future of farming will look like in five or ten years’ time,” explains Klauser.
“From talking to customers in different countries, we see that for the near term, they want to have the flexibility of still having a cab on the tractor. This is the direction we are taking because we want our customers to feel comfortable as they begin to delegate more tasks to the machines themselves,” says Klauser.
“We have already begun to see some of the applications of this concept study being applied in our current lineup – such as AccuTurnTM and there are more introductions on the horizon.” AccuTurn takes the guesswork out of turning on headlands with automated headland-turning technology powered by software logic from the autonomous concept tractor. This next-generation Advanced Farming Systems (AFS) autoguidance technology provides hands-free, automatic and repeatable turns for increased productivity, improved accuracy and reduced operator fatigue.
“We will see more AFS product content on our offering to come in 2018,” says Klauser. “We are excited to be starting a pilot program with an evolved concept that incorporates the feedback from customers’ reactions to the concept as well as additional testing. We are working with a key customer with intensive tilling operations to thoroughly test the implementation of this technology.”
