About FINN

Built by a farmer, for field tools that have to work offline.

The short version

I’m Tom, a broadacre farmer in Jamestown, South Australia, running a mixed operation with my father. I’m also a self-taught programmer, and I got tired of the gap between what farm tech promises and what it actually delivers.

So I started building my own.

What FINN is

FINN stands for Farm Integrated Neural Network, but the project is not one big app and it is not a vague AI pitch. It is a set of separate farm tools that can work on their own and connect when it is useful.

The first practical entry point is Finn Guidance: a Rust guidance app for a Windows laptop and a USB GPS receiver. It began as a lightbar because that is the simplest useful thing a farmer can put in a cab without dealer hardware, subscriptions, or a locked-down ecosystem.

The field work has moved beyond that first story. The tractor guidance path is now centred on an LC29H BA receiver direct to the laptop, with a motor ESP32 handling the steering inner loop. That auto-steer work is field-prototype work, not a polished public product.

Around it, the wider FINN system is taking shape:

  • FINN Pilot for implement sensing, safety switches, shaft speed, outside-tine GPS, camera capture, and future coverage authority.
  • FINN Base for local RTK correction service using the LC29H BS module.
  • FINN Core for field-run records, worker nodes, analysis tasks, memory, and dashboard views.
  • FINN Interface for voice, display, presence, and operator interaction.
  • FINN Copter for aerial mapping and future map-layer updates into the farm state.

Each piece stays separate by design. If the internet drops, the guidance still has to guide. If Core is down, the base station still has to serve corrections. If Pilot is not ready, the tractor should still be safe and usable.

Hardware reality

The original cheap-lightbar idea was based on very low-cost receiver boards. That is not the whole hardware cost once you include the antenna and a setup you would actually put on a tractor.

A realistic budget for the GPS module plus antenna is around $100 AUD. Cables, mounting, weather protection, and any cab hardware are extra.

The LC29H module family also has different jobs inside FINN:

  • DA: useful for implement-mounted fix and lower-authority sensing roles, especially in FINN Pilot.
  • BA: the tractor guidance direction, because steering needs better vehicle-state behaviour.
  • BS: the base-station/correction source for FINN Base, not a rover receiver.

Treating those modules as interchangeable would create bad field assumptions, so the project docs and public pages now call the split out directly.

The philosophy

Every piece of FINN is built with a few principles:

  • Low barrier to entry. If a farmer needs a dealer visit or a training course to try it, we have missed the mark.
  • No lock-in. Open source software, standard hardware, and data in formats you can read.
  • Offline first. Field tools should keep doing their local job when the rest of the network is unavailable.
  • Built for the real world. Dusty cabins, dodgy USB ports, patchy reception, and long days matter.
  • Farmer first. Not investor first, not tech first. Every feature should answer a real farm problem.

The tech

Finn Guidance is written in Rust with an egui interface. The current field direction reads GPS directly on the laptop, records jobs and coverage in SQLite, and keeps steering authority local to the tractor app and motor controller.

FINN Core is a Python/FastAPI hub with local workers, field-run ingestion, and analysis workflows. Pilot, Base, Copter, Interface, and the public website each stay in their own project so the system can grow without turning into one fragile bundle.

Get in touch

Got questions, ideas, or just want to yarn about farm tech?

Or find me at a field day. I will probably be the one with a laptop in the cab.