대동 DAEDONG

-. Vision AI recognizes and assesses farming environments to enable autonomous operation, bringing AI-based Level 4 technology to market for the first time in Korea.

-. SDT and MLOps enable continuous evolution even after sale through a cycle of learning from field data, improving performance and deploying OTA updates.

-. The Agricultural Physical AI lineup now extends to AI tractors, following rice transplanters, transport robots and combine harvesters.

 

Daedong (Co-CEOs Kim Jun-Sik and Won Yu-Hyun), a leader in future agriculture, announced on September 1, 2026, that its AI tractor (HX1400-AI), launched in Korea in April 2026, has received the Rural Development Administration’s New Technology Agricultural Machinery designation.

 

The designated technology is the ‘vision AI-based Level 4 autonomous driving tractor platform’ used in the AI tractor. It consists of Level 4 autonomous driving automation technology based on a vision AI recognition model and app-based remote control technology for autonomous operation. Existing autonomous agricultural machinery has focused on following preset routes using a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). The AI tractor, by contrast, uses cameras and AI processors to independently recognize and analyze farmland, implements, obstacles and other elements of the farming environment, then make decisions and perform tasks according to the situation.

 

The tractor recognizes field boundaries, automatically maps each plot and generates work routes to perform tasks autonomously. It stops on its own if it detects an obstacle or encounters an abnormal situation. It also automatically identifies the attached implement, reducing the operator’s burden of controlling the equipment and making decisions. Daedong has become the first in Korea to implement this ‘AI autonomous operation’ technology in a commercial tractor, in a field where global agricultural machinery companies are competing.

 

Daedong is developing its AI tractor into a ‘Software Defined Tractor (SDT)’ that continuously evolves through software. Through over-the-air (OTA) software updates, the company delivers new autonomous operation and convenience features, along with enhanced AI models, to improve performance without replacing the equipment. In August 2026, Daedong rolled out the tractor’s first OTA update since launch, adding convenience features for autonomous operation.

 

SDT is underpinned by a machine learning operations (MLOps) framework that uses on-farm data to improve products. Daedong trained the AI on more than 5 million images collected during development and has continued to accumulate data from actual farming operations since launch. The accumulated data is used to train and validate AI and improve performance, with enhanced models then deployed through OTA updates in a virtuous cycle. As a result, the AI tractor’s performance improves as it gains more farming experience.

 

 

Since its launch, the AI tractor has been used primarily by professional farmers and farming corporations for a range of tasks, including plowing, rotary tillage and ridging in rice paddies and upland fields. AI generates work routes that reduce overlapping passes and missed areas while maintaining consistent work quality, lowering operator fatigue and reliance on skilled operators. Using the app, users can also remotely start or stop work, command the tractor to return, and monitor its location and work progress.

 

The AI tractor is a core product in Daedong’s ‘Agricultural Physical AI’ strategy. Daedong is extending technologies that enable AI to recognize farming environments, make decisions and perform real-world tasks across its agricultural machinery and agricultural robots. As a result, major product lines have successively received the Rural Development Administration’s New Technology Agricultural Machinery designation, starting with the autonomous rice transplanter in 2021, followed by the autonomous transport robot, combine harvester and AI tractor this year.

 

The New Technology Agricultural Machinery designation is a program that evaluates the performance, quality, and technological and economic impact of agricultural machinery incorporating technologies developed for the first time in Korea or innovative improvements to existing technologies. Designated products may receive benefits including priority purchasing by local governments and public institutions, government subsidy and loan support, and preferential treatment when participating in public procurement.