Emerging from its annual summer field day, Kelly Hills Unmanned announces the launch of two interesting endeavors that will surely move the needle forward on smart farming technology R&D:
- The outfit is co-launching what it is calling the Rural Autonomous Mobility Program (RAMP), a pioneering public-private initiative to bring autonomous farm equipment onto public roads for the first time in the U.S.
- Kelly Hills is also launching SpraySense, an AI-powered, autonomous application intelligence product developed through the company’s accelerator program, The Forge.
We’ll start with RAMP
RAMP, or the Rural Autonomous Mobility Program, was born from the vision of Kelly Hills CEO Lukas Koch and was made possible by the Kansas Department of Transportation’s (KDOT) Innovative Technology Program.
RAMP’s mission is to enable autonomous tractors and farm machinery to safely and legally operate on rural public roads, solving logistical bottlenecks and revitalizing rural economies.
Initial RAMP collaborators include:
- Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems (Program Manager)
- Sabanto (Autonomous Tractor Manufacturer)
- Nemaha County in Kansas (Local Partner)
- KDOT
- Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA)
- Kansas State University (K-State)
According to a press release, the partners aim to develop policy, infrastructure and safety protocols to allow fully autonomous tractors to move between fields and operational bases without human drivers.
RAMP will operate within a pilot phase in Kansas through 2026, collecting data on autonomous road operations, engaging with local communities and working with regulators to build a scalable model for other states and agricultural regions.
Let’s learn about SpraySense
The inaugural 2025 cohort of The Forge, which we wrote about back in June, brought together ag tech and drone technology companies like Yamaha Precision Agriculture, Pyka, Precision AI, Scanit Technologies, Heinen Brothers Agra Services, and Taranis to co-develop solutions that address one of farming’s most persistent questions: When is the right time to apply fungicide?
According to Koch, the group was originally focused on optimizing fungicide application for corn and soybean growers, but the collaborative efforts exceeded expectations, resulting in the creation of SpraySense.
The platform, an end-to-end AI-driven recommendation and application system, brings together aerial imagery, weather and environmental conditions, disease risk models and traditional agronomy data sets to deliver real-time recommendations on whether, when, where and how to spray.
While its debut application targets fungicide optimization, SpraySense is designed as a modular, flexible platform. Kelly Hills plans to adapt the technology to other crop inputs including fertilizer, biologicals, herbicides and insecticides.
There’s a lot of cool, innovative stuff happening in those gently rolling, emerald green north Kansas hills. Check out KellyHills.us to learn more.
