Kubota has received a DLG Agrifuture Concept Winner 2022 award for its automated fruit picking system, jointly developed with Tevel, a global leading expert in autonomous flying robots. The gong – the only one of the five a vehicle concept – was handed out by the German DLG, organisers of Agritechnica,.
Kubota and Tevel combined their expertise to address the major challenge of labour shortages in fruit harvesting by developing an automated fruit picking system, offering a solution for any farm size through its unique and modular approach. The modular concept of wired fruit-picking drones and flexible logistics solutions allows various configurations for individual farm requirements and enables full compatibility with established harvesting methods.
Above: the system operation in a simulation environment
resident and representative director of Kubota Corporation Mr Yuichi Kitao, Mr Yasukazu Kamada, president of Kubota Holdings Europe B.V. and Mr Peter van der Vlugt, managing director of Kubota’s Innovation Center in Europe, attended the online award ceremony.
“Our vision for 2030 is to be an ‘Essentials Innovator for Supporting Life,’ said Mr Kitao, during the online ceremony. “This DLG Agrifuture Concept Winner 2022 award is an encouragement to continue our investments in sustainable innovations in the fields of food, water, and the environment, looking ahead to the post-Covid-19 society.”
Above: Kubota and Tevel’s field test harvesting unit
DLG, the German agricultural society presents the DLG Agrifuture Concept awards for pioneering agricultural machinery work and future visions. Visionary agricultural machinery solutions provide crucial stimuli for the future viability of global crop production. Engineers across the globe are working on technical solutions for the future of agriculture. Not all of their ideas and concepts make it to the finished product stage. Often, technical or legal constraints limit their development to market maturity. Many of these concepts nevertheless have the potential to provide inspiration and to stimulate farmers and engineering colleagues to think in new ways.
“We are particularly proud of our collaboration with Tevel,” said Peter van der Vlugt, general manager of Kubota’s Innovation Centre in Europe. “We partnered with one of the most advanced technology companies in fruit picking. Kubota is committed to help solve fruit growers’ problems in providing security for harvesting timing and quality and to deal with the increasing labour issues that growers are facing nowadays.”
Saul Wordsworth is deputy editor of the iVT brand - which includes digital and print editions of a quarterly magazine and Off-Highway Annual, as well as ivtinternational.com. He is a keen cyclist and lives in north London.
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