But with significant investment in the development of autonomous farm machinery, research prototypes now moving to commercial production and safety concerns addressed with levels of redundancy, autonomous tractors are here and expected to be commonplace within a decade.

In the May 2017 Research Report, we profile the companies working on the coalface of the autonomous farm machinery space and outline progress they are building towards making autonomous machinery readily available.

We also look at the technology behind autonomy including Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) which becomes the eyes of autonomous machinery and has become commonly used in autonomous road vehicles.

With over a dozen companies profiled, this report will provide a snapshot in time and bring readers up-to-date with the rise of the robots on farm.