In February the Kubota Corporation was honored as Agrifuture Concept Winner 2022 at Agritechnica, the world’s largest farm machinery exhibition. The winning concept; automated fruit picking system developed jointly with Tevel Aerobotics Technologies, earned high praise not only for its novelty but also for its feasibility.

The Agrifuture Concept Winner 2022 at Agritechnica, the world’s largest farm machinery exhibition, is a pioneering solutions award focusing on the realistic chances of implementation over the next five to 10 years in the agricultural industry.

Kubota and Tevel received this award for its automated fruit picking system for fruit farms. This innovative idea received high marks for its novelty, feasibility, and versatility allowing the system to be applicable to various sizes of fruit farms businesses.

This concept includes harvesting robots equipped with Tevel Flying Autonomous Robot (FAR) to automate the picking process by identifying ripe fruit using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The combination of Tevel’s FARs with Kubota’s self-driving tractors and other agricultural machinery allows various configurations for individual farm requirements and enables full compatibility with established harvesting methods. This concept helps tackle the growing human labor shortage on fruit farms worldwide. The system is also expected to provide other benefits, such as improving the quality of product and reducing food waste due to harvest losses, by identifying the ideal time to pick fruits.

Kubota will continue to forge partnerships with companies and research institutes that are developing pioneering technology to create future agriculture by satisfying the needs of each generation as a total solutions company.