Ouster and Fieldin Announce Largest Deployment of Retrofit Autonomy Kits for Autonomous Tractors Following Multi-Year Supply Agreement
SAN FRANCISCO—-Ouster, Inc. (NYSE: OUST), a leading provider of high-performance lidar sensors, and Fieldin, a leading AgTech company with a smart farming platform and autonomous technology, announced the largest known deployment of retrofit autonomy kits for autonomous tractors in the agricultural industry following the signing of their multi-year supply agreement. Fieldin has already deployed dozens of kits at its customers’ farms and plans to deploy over 100 autonomy retrofit kits on tractors, each equipped with an Ouster OS1, to major customers across the United States in 2023. Ouster shipped 100 sensors to Fieldin at the end of 2022 as part of its binding agreement, and expects to ship several hundred additional sensors through 2024.
Fieldin’s deployment of 100 retrofit autonomy kits stands to make it the largest deployment of autonomous tractors in the industry to date. Fieldin’s autonomy kits are part of its offering to digitize and transform today’s farms into autonomous ones. The autonomy kit offers various levels of automation features that can be unlocked, including auto-steering and other driving assistance capabilities, autonomous spraying, and fully autonomous driver-out functionality in line with rapidly evolving local autonomous driving regulations. These features can drive improved operational efficiency and significant cost reductions, such as up to 87% in chemical savings for high-value crop growers.
Fieldin uses Ouster’s OS1 sensors on tractors and other farm machinery for reliable vehicle localization, navigation, and object detection. Fieldin’s autonomous solutions sit alongside their Smart Farming Operations platform, providing aggregated data and dashboards to create visibility in real-time and insight for key farm decision-makers, which can strengthen accountability, precision, operations and results. Together, Ouster and Fieldin aim to address common challenges facing the agricultural industry through innovative and scalable autonomous farming solutions.
“Agricultural equipment operates rain or shine, in fluctuating temperatures and dusty environments, and through narrow aisles of crops completing a variety of routine tasks from spraying and harvesting to mowing. Fieldin is modernizing agricultural management from beginning to end to optimize operations and reduce costs, while making a positive global contribution through better food, higher yields, and environmental impact management,“ said Fieldin Co-founder and Chief Autonomy Officer Yonatan Horovitz. “To achieve this at scale, we needed a lidar sensor for our autonomy kit that was robust, reliable, and cost-effective. Ouster delivers all of that and more with excellent customer support and product availability.”
The market for autonomous farming equipment is expected to reach approximately $95 billion by 2027. In the U.S. alone, there are more than an estimated 4 million agricultural machines that can be retrofitted and automated. Fieldin has installed more than 10,000 IoT devices on agricultural machinery in the three largest markets for fruit, nuts, and vegetables, and aims to upgrade each of these installations with one of its autonomy kits.
About Ouster
Ouster (NYSE: OUST) is a leading global provider of lidar for the automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure industries. Ouster’s products include high-resolution scanning and solid-state digital lidar sensors, Velodyne Lidar sensors, and software solutions. Ouster is on a mission to build a safer and more sustainable future by offering affordable, high-performance sensors that drive mass adoption across a wide variety of applications. With a global team and high-volume manufacturing, Ouster supports over 850 customers in over 50 countries. Ouster is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.ouster.com.
About Fieldin
Fieldin is a leading AgTech company that developed a smart farm operation platform and autonomous technology. Fieldin is powering the autonomous, smart farm of the future through its data-driven, sensor-based farming platform combined with autonomous driving technologies that provides growers with real-time actionable insights into the day-to-day management of their farms with autonomous execution capabilities. Fieldin serves hundreds of agricultural enterprises around the world, including five of the 10 largest farms in California and its platform supports more than 20% of the global production of almonds and 30% of US-based lettuce crops. Since its inception, Fieldin has monitored 49 million tractor hours and 21 million acres, and digitized over 10,000 tractors and other machinery. Fieldin’s headquarters are located in CA with additional offices in Israel, and Australia. For more information, visit www.fieldin.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
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