Raven Industries, Inc., Sioux Falls, S.D., announced plans to acquire majority ownership of DOT Technology Corp., a Canada-based provider of autonomous agriculture solutions. The investment will align under the company’s applied technology division in support of its recently announced strategic growth platform, Raven Autonomy.

DOT manufactures U-shaped, diesel-powered platform to autonomously handle a large variety of agriculture implements. Through its accurate path planning technology, the platform is able to complete tasks autonomously.

“Over the last year and a half of collaborating with DOT, Raven has come to understand the value and uniqueness of the Dot platform,” says Dan Rykhus, president and CEO of Raven Industries. “We are furthering our investment in and ownership of this unique, disruptive technology. By investing in DOT’s growth, we believe we have the ability to lead in the next revolution of production agriculture.”

Through this majority ownership, Raven will leverage the respective strengths of each entity to drive commercialization and adoption efforts of autonomy in agriculture. Raven offers steering, guidance and machine control technology, while DOT brings field path planning, user control experience, machine safety and remote communication software to this relationship. Together, the companies will accelerate the development of precision agriculture technology from semi-autonomous to fully-autonomous solutions.

“Our majority ownership investment in DOT is clear evidence of our commitment to deliver revolutionary autonomous technology to the market,” says Brian Meyer, division vice president of Raven applied technology. “By bringing together DOT’s unique platform with our machine control technology, industry knowledge and OEM partnerships, Raven will be the market leader in autonomous precision agriculture advancements.”

“As a company, we launched the Dot platform to change farming. Raven has been a critical partner in helping to get Dot to where we are today,” says Norbert Beaujot, owner and founder of DOT and SeedMaster Manufacturing Ltd. “Our combined technologies will undoubtedly help accelerate speed to market and adoption of machine automation.”