CNH Industrial, parent of the Case IH. New Holland, Steyr and Flexi-Coil farm equipment brands, has signed a cash deal to buy satellite positioning tech firm Hemisphere GNSS, parent of the Outback Guidance aftermarket GPS, precision ag and autosteer business.

CNH has announced it will pay $175 million US for Hemisphere, which has been owned since 2013 by Chinese geospatial tech firm Beijing Unistrong.

CNH described the deal for Hemisphere as a critical step that advances their automated and autonomous solutions for agriculture and construction.

The machinery maker has undertaken a major push into autonomous ag — most significantly in 2021 with the $2.1 billion purchase of U.S. precision ag tech firm Raven Industries, whose products include the Canadian-developed OMNiPower (formerly DOT) autonomous equipment system.

CNH also bought control of U.S.-Greek precision ag and field analysis tech firm Augmenta earlier this month, and a minority stake in U.S. ag sensor firm EarthOptics in January.