Autonomous Transport Platform

Mission Alignment

Small and mixed crop-and-animal farms can't use large-scale planting and tillage equipment — it's too big, too expensive, and compacts soil in a way that works directly against regenerative practice. This solution extends what a small farm's own labor can cover during narrow planting windows, without the compaction cost of heavier machinery.

Problem Statement

A Midwest corn farmer may have only five to seven days of optimal soil conditions at a time to plant thousands of acres. Small and mixed farms have no affordable, open, repairable autonomous platform sized for that reality — existing autonomous ag robots are priced for operations far larger than the ones this program targets.

Scope Boundary

In Scope

• Chassis, drivetrain, and power system
• Autonomy and navigation stack
• Weatherproofing and autonomous charging/docking behavior
• A defined mechanical, electrical, and data interface that lets implements attach and be swapped

Out of Scope

• The seeding mechanism and other implement internals — see the Seeding Implement solution
• The data platform itself, beyond consuming its field data for route and task planning

Product Components

Chassis & Drive

• Lightweight frame with independently driven wheels at each corner for tight-radius maneuvering
• Ground pressure engineered well below tractor-scale equipment to avoid soil compaction

Power

• Rechargeable battery pack sized for several hours of continuous field operation

Autonomy

• GPS-guided waypoint navigation with centimeter-level accuracy via a farm-fixed correction station
• Onboard obstacle sensing tuned for a mixed crop-and-livestock environment
• Autonomous return-to-charge behavior

Implement Interface

• A documented mechanical mount, power, and data-bus specification that lets third-party implements attach later

Phased Milestones

1. Single drive-module prototype and bench integration of the drive and navigation stack
2. Full chassis prototype, manually operated, with ground-pressure validation in real field and mud conditions
3. Autonomy layer: GPS waypoint navigation, return-to-charge, and obstacle avoidance in a real field test
4. Weatherized, farm-pilot-ready unit with the implement interface finalized
5. First connection to field sensor data for informed route and task planning

Open Research Questions

• What tire and wheel choice best balances ground pressure, cost, and mud performance across the range of soil conditions target farms actually operate in?
• What obstacle-avoidance tuning is needed specifically for a mixed crop-and-livestock environment — slow-moving animals, irregular field boundaries — versus a row-crop-only assumption?
• What docking and charging approaches have other open-source agricultural robot projects used successfully, and what failure modes are documented?

Success Metrics

• Verified ground pressure low enough to avoid meaningful soil compaction, measured in the field, not just calculated
• Multiple hours of continuous autonomous operation on a single charge under real field conditions
• Reliable, repeated unattended return-to-charge cycles