Japan
By 2015, efforts to activate unmanned agriculture through satellite data were advancing rapidly in Japan.
But international competition to launch rockets and build satellites is fierce.
Hitachi Shipbuilding, Yangma Agricultural Machinery and Hitachi Productions are pushing ahead with trials of automated agriculture using Japan's version of the Global Positioning System (GPS).
The Japanese version of GPS refers mainly to the quasi-zenithal satellite system built by Mitsubishi Electric.
Existing GPS systems rely mainly on American satellites. In Japan, a mountainous country, the signal is difficult to cover completely and the positioning error is about 10 meters.
In January 2015, the Japanese government announced a plan to increase the number of quasi-zenith satellites that can stay over Japan for extended periods of time to seven by 2033, up from the current one.
The goal is to build Japan's own positioning system to ensure that azimuth data within five metres can be obtained in any part of the country.
The new system will open a new way for satellite data to be used in agriculture that is unimaginable based on current (2015) data.
Australia
In The Australian state of New South Wales, driverless tractors are already being used for farming.
