Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2021 - 25

ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT

Monarch's automated, electric tractor ready for 2021 deliveries
" If you want to fundamentally improve
your economics, " said Monarch Tractor
co-founder and CTO Zachary
Omohundro to farmers and growers
everywhere, " you go electric. "
During a webcast with SAE
International's Southern California
Section featuring his startup company's
battery-electric compact tractor,
Omohundro offered markedly reduced
operational costs as only one of many
reasons for using the Monarch tractor,
for which he said deliveries will start
this fall for the " several hundred working farms " that have reserved the tractor that starts at $50,000.
The startup, spun off in 2019 from
California-based " innovation engineering " firm Motivo Engineering, said its
compact tractor - the highest-volume
segment of the market - can save operators as much as $45 per day in running costs, while also simplifying typical
tractor tasks and potentially freeing labor for other purposes. Moreover, at 40
hp (30 kW) nominal continuous power,
the developers claim the Monarch will be
the most powerful machine in the class.
Its electric powertrain can generate up
to 70 hp (55 kW) peak power.
Meanwhile, the Monarch tractor is
designed to operate conventionally
with a driver, to assist the driver or to
complete pre-programmed tasks in
completely driverless mode. In a release, Monarch explained that the tractor " utilizes the latest autonomous
hardware and software technology to
provide driver-assist and driver-optional operations. " In the webcast,
Monarch said standard GPS sensing
can provide geo-location with roughly
2-cm (0.80-in.) accuracy to enable
precision driverless operation and,
along with its other sensors, help assure safety in its area of operation.

Automated help

During the SAE SoCal webcast,
Omohundro explained the Monarch
tractor can perform many tasks without
a driver but said its automation capabilities do not yet run to completing
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING

operations - row plowing, for example
- without prior pre-programming. The
large canopy roof contains all of the
machine's sensors and receiving equip-

ment, as well as storage for roughly two
days' worth of crop data at roughly 260
GB daily. And although the tractor is
envisioned to accommodate radar and

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Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2021
