Autonomous Pivot

By 2050, feeding the world’s 9 billion person population is expected to require a 60% increase in ag production while using 15% less water. Autonomous Pivot has begun to transform center-pivot irrigation systems into an intelligent, AI-driven robotic platform that disrupts row-crop farming. Proprietary, non-invasive sensors and cameras provide growers with a complete, yet affordable, solution that not only increases profitability but also saves the environment. Water, nutrients and chemicals are used in significantly smaller amounts if using Autonomous Pivot’s solution.

By 2050, feeding the world’s 9 billion person population is expected to require a 60% increase in Ag production while using 15% less water. Specifically, most of our farms are in the Ogallala Aquifer region (OAR). The OAR faces increasing challenges as irrigation inputs increase while the recharge rate decreases due to climate variability.

Without accurately and consistently checking soil moisture, inputting water to a field is merely guesswork. Autonomous Pivot’s platform utilizes on-pivot (1) moisture, (2) nitrogen and (3) crop-disease sensors, respectively: (1) World’s first on-pivot ground-penetrating-radar (GPR); continuous noninvasive soil-moisture sensing (2) Crop Nitrogen sensor (3) Two rgb cameras. The first two sensors are proprietary and in the process of patenting. Additional sensors are rain-gauge and GPS. Our solution accumulates all field data and using a proprietary AI engine produces optimized irrigation and fertigation plans. These plans then control the irrigation pivot or are conveyed to the farmer through Autonomous-Pivot’s App. This gives farmers access to real-time data about the conditions of their fields, helping prevent stress on the plant that reduces yield. It simultaneously prevents harmful over-watering practices that also negatively impact yield and deplete local aquifers and strain local ecosystems.

Immediately, we are working to serve farmers of all sizes, from small-time single field farmers to large corporate entities. Unfortunately, a majority of farmers use little to none of the data-based technology that is available. Making that technology both affordable and user-friendly will be crucial in addressing the challenges they face in the future.That's what we are doing at Autonomous Pivot. Making accurate data more accessible to farmers. Because indirectly but intentionally, our product will serve the entire global population as we face the challenge of potentially doubling our worldwide food production while mindfully conserving our precious natural resources.

In 2020, we partnered with The Nature Conservancy to improve conditions in the Rattlesnake Creek Basin. While Rattlesnake Creek is the source from which most farmers pull to irrigate their fields, it also feeds Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Our technology does address the needs of growing sufficient crops to feed the world's increasing population. However, it also helps to prevent groundwater depletion as well as surface and groundwater pollution. Effective agroecosystem sustainability practices will be pivotal in protecting our delicate surrounding ecosystems while producing more crops more efficiently.

We currently have customers all across Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas, along with our farmers pulling water from the Ogallala Aquifer. This year we installed over 150 systems across the region. Our focus now is scaling our enterprise to reach more farmers in the region and across the nation while continuing to expand to other continents where our product can have a similar positive impact on those local ecosystems.

Current methodology includes manual soil sampling, image analysis or a single static sensor. Our technology is innovative in that it takes advantage of the physical structure of the pivot, which is already in place, and transforms it into a data-collecting farming robot. We expect to not only change but conquer the market. One day, our sensors and technology will be on every pivot in the world, analyzing, informing and instructing farmers on their soil water availability and how and when to irrigate and apply fertilizers. The need to increase yield while using less natural resources will demand that farmers measure, record and evaluate their inputs. Gone are the days of irrigating out of fear or uncertainty. Autonomous Pivot makes information accessible to those who need it the most.

We have over 70 customers who currently implement our service. In 2022 we hope to reach over 350 customers, and by 2026 we hope that number has grown to over 10,000 customers. However, the true measurement for our solution will come in the food it provides worldwide and the water it preserves for local ecosystems.

The expansion of our product into the marketplace is our main metric. We also measure strategic partnerships with national conservatory agencies, i.e. The Nature Conservancy. Also constantly evaluating the efficiency of our own system to make it more accurate and useful. The more systems, the more data collected and the more farmers that can responsibly conserve water.

We have twelve full-time Autonomous Pivot employees. But we also work with a network of more than 50 Farmers co-op reps, crop consultants, pivot dealers and regional Ag retailers. We work together to implement our solution across the Midwest.

Prior to founding AP, I was a Lead Algorithms Developer at Mobileye, an Israeli autonomous driving technology company. I hold a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from The Hebrew University. Yossi Haran, Co-Founder and Head of Innovation, prior to founding AP, Yossi was the co-founder and CTO of CropX, an Ag Tech company. He has 11 patents and expertise in Ag Tech, and AI Systems at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. Yair Sharf, Co-Founder and VP R&D, prior to founding AP, Yair was the VP of R&D at CropX and a team leader at Microsoft Hololens. He holds a BSc in electrical engineering. Lee Wheeler has  30 years of experience in supporting farmers in Kansas & Colorado as NRCS’s senior irrigation specialist. We are all farmers at heart and all deeply invested in the success of both our product and our farmers.

Diversity is key the building any robust and resilient system and we recognize the necessity of a diverse leadership team. Autonomous Pivot is a young company with only a few employees. But we as we grow, we are looking for ways to include more diverse peoples and perspectives in our leadership team.

The non-monetary benefit of being a part of the MIT Solve community, with access to the network of scientists, engineers and mentors, is incalculably valuable. The reputation and prestige of MIT would greatly help our products reception as a cutting edge technological advance.

We are actively looking for a regional Sales and Marketing director for the Midwest.

And also seeking to grow our market presence in the Southeast and Northwest regions.

And we are always seeking to further our technology and increase our capabilities.

The opportunity to work Sharon Bort and the sustainability community of Solve would be an amazing opportunity. Also to work with relevant faculty and departments for research, AI and Deep Learning would greatly help our company.  

Farmers use the best of their knowledge to get as much yield as possible with as few inputs as possible. Yet, it is well known that they are far from reaching the crop potential. This is due to lack of reliable and abundant data, which leads to lack of good analysis and hence wasteful decisions. 

Autonomous Pivot harnesses the power of sophisticated sensors, machine learning and IoT to solve this problem. The novel non-invasive sensors provide continuous and reliable measurements of relevant agronomic information, such as soil moisture, plant nutrient level, and pests pressure. A cloud-based AI engine, then analyzes the data gathered from the sensors, from the web and from third parties, to create a coherent optimal irrigation, fertigation (fertilizers through the water) and chemigation (chemicals through the water) prescriptions. Lastly, our systems program the irrigation-pivots with these optimal plans, hence advancing farming a step closer to autonomous farming.

We have good reasons and data to believe that we can save at least 25% of water, nutrient and chemical sprays with an increase in yield.

All in all, our system utilizes AI to benefit humanity in growing more crops while using less resources. With this prize, we will advance the use of our technology across the country and worldwide.

Autonomous Pivot harnesses the power of sophisticated sensors, machine learning and IoT to solve this problem. The novel non-invasive sensors provide continuous and reliable measurements of relevant agronomic information, such as soil moisture, plant nutrient level, and pests pressure. A cloud-based AI engine, then analyzes the data gathered from the sensors, from the web and from third parties, to create a coherent optimal irrigation, fertigation (fertilizers through the water) and chemigation (chemicals through the water) prescriptions. Lastly, our systems program the irrigation-pivots with these optimal plans, thus advancing one step closer to autonomous farming.

We have good reasons and data to believe that we can save at least 25% of water, nutrient and chemical sprays with an increase in yield.

Every great revolution has come in response to greater access to information. We hope to bring about a row-crop revolution, where farmers abandon wasteful practices of the past and embrace a new paradigm of computational agriculture. The GSR Prize will hasten this revolution and show the world how innovative technology is the path forward to a brighter future.