Monarch Unveils AI-Powered Autonomous Platform

Bringing the power of autonomy to all equipment.

September 25, 2025

Roberto Baldwin

Before Monarch existed in 2015, its co-founders CTO Zachary Omohundro and CEO Praveen Penmetsa traveled to India to assemble two electric and connected tractors they had shipped over in crates. They went to a local village and had a plan to deploy the vehicles.

“We had a text messaging-based reservation system that the villagers ended up saying, ‘Nope, we’re not going to use that at all,’” Omohundro told SAE Media. Instead, the local farmers wanted to work through a local man who knew how to operate tractors. So, they pivoted.

Jump ahead 10 years, and Omohundro and Penmetsa are unveiling something new to the market. The MonarchOne AI platform brings autonomy to tractors, but also other farming and construction equipment. The same sensors, computing hardware, and cloud backend that would keep a tractor traveling between grapevines and help feed cows can also be used to control and power a grain auger. But it’s way more than just tractors and augers. Monarch says its system can be deployed on a wide array of equipment, and it’s willing to make sure it works correctly when it does.

Deploying together

While Monarch is an OEM with its own electric tractor on the market, its MonarchOne platform is available to any company looking to add autonomy to their off-highway vehicles and equipment. The company offers a modular hardware setup that ships with a full software stack, energy management, reference hardware kit, and its own AI and data collection algorithms that can be adjusted to support the goals of customers.

Which brings us back to the trip to India. Similar to that situation, Monarch is ready to learn rather than just impose. “Something that people often underestimate, or sometimes even completely forget about, is the deployment side. Deployment is very much about actually making sure that the end customer or the user is able to use it and be successful using it and sees value out of it,” Penmetsa said.

Deployment requires a team from Monarch working with both the OEM partner and with the people on the ground using these machines. “Automation is not one of those things where you kind of, you know, open a box. Just a one-step process. It’s very much a journey,” Penmetsa said.

The partner has a specific task for the machines. The customers know how they use these machines. A collaboration of openness on all sides should result in a tool that operates in an efficient manner. It’s not that Monarch just sits back and recreates the exact process already in place; it offers ideas to increase production that may not have been available before or just overlooked.

Deploying a new machine initially took six to nine months. Now Monarch says that some systems could be deployed within two quarters, with a goal of deploying within a single quarter.

Software and hardware stacked

At its core, the MonarchOne platform is a proprietary software and hardware stack that can be tweaked to do far more than keep a tractor in a straight line. The company is working with multiple (unnamed) partners that will expand the use of the system. From farms to construction sites and beyond, the ability to tweak both software and hardware for multiple tasks gives the platform the ability to be deployed within multiple markets with partners that might not have the cash or bandwidth to build their own architecture.

The vision-based software stack will accept data and input from other sensors. For example, thermal imaging and moisture sensors could be added, and with machine learning, the software can recognize how to integrate the data into its tasks.

The software is embedded in the vehicle for real-time control of tasks. That said, it does support OTA (over-the-air) updates.

Monarch is aware that not all tractors are electric like its own and does work with partners that have diesel-powered vehicles and hardware. It’s also important to note that this system can be added to quite a lot of machinery that doesn’t even move.

On its tractors, the system resides in the canopy over the driver. This keeps it above most of the dirt. But to keep the sensor area clear of dust and moisture, Monarch uses an air curtain that flows over the case that holds the sensors. The company notes that its system will alert the operator when the glass around the sensor needs to be cleaned in order for the system to operate.

Auto auger

Inside the Monarch headquarters in Livermore, Calif., the company gave me the keys to its electric tractor. After a very slow jaunt around the parking lot, I was shown a Westfield E-UTX 44 grain auger. The auger had been stripped of its diesel motor and was outfitted with MonarchOne sensors, an electric motor, and hardware and software system.

Typically, a truck driver will park their vehicle under the output of the auger, jump out of their truck, turn on the auger, and start the grain flowing. If it’s cold outside, they do all this while trying to keep warm. With the MonarchOne system, after parking under the output, the driver could pull up an app on their phone and begin filling their truck. Camera sensors make sure the grain is being delivered and give the driver an option to see the delivery in real time.

Also, thanks to the data collected from the electric motor, based on the grain type and speed of delivery, the system could potentially measure the amount of grain delivered. Typically, that’s done by measuring before and after filling their trucks. But for farmers relying on grain sales for income, every extra bit of data helps, and Monarch is happy to help learn about, collect, and put that data to use on anything off-highway you throw at it.