From simulation to soil: lessons from a ROS 2-powered tractor

How do you develop autonomous software for one tractor and build an architecture that can eventually support more than 150 machines operating around the world?

In this presentation, Tim Clephas and Ferry Schoenmakers share the engineering journey behind AgXeed’s autonomous tractor. What started in 2018 as the development of autonomy software evolved into a scalable ROS 2-based software architecture for commercially deployed agricultural machines.

They take you through the choices made along the way: developing with a digital twin down to CAN-bus level, testing software before the physical tractor was available, building a robust diagnostics framework and managing software deployment across a growing fleet.

The presentation also covers the lessons that only become apparent when autonomous machines move from development into daily operation. Why extensive field data matters. Why simulation remains valuable long after the first machine is running. And why customers inevitably discover situations that engineers did not anticipate.

Watch the presentation to learn how simulation, ROS 2, diagnostics and containerised deployment helped bridge the gap between autonomous prototype and a fleet operating in the field.