Kubota's AIs system, Bronze Medal at SITEVI 2023 Awards

Kubota's integrated agricultural AIs system has been awarded the bronze medal at the prestigious SITEVI Innovation Awards. It is being presented at the SITEVI show, which takes place from 28-30 November 2023 in Montpellier, France. These awards are given to the most innovative equipment, products, techniques and services presented by exhibitors at the show. This recognition reinforces Kubota's position as an innovation leader in the agricultural sector.

Kubota AIs is a comprehensive solution for intelligent spraying that enables maximum precision, effective and efficient treatments for the protection of special crops and the integration of third party services into a single system.

These features, together with the rest of its innovative technological and environmental contributions, were decisive for the SITEVI Innovation Awards expert jury, which considered Kubota's innovation among the most outstanding innovations in the sector presented at the fair. This made it the winner of one of the awards. These prizes are awarded at the biennial SITEVI, the leading trade fair for the viticulture and winemaking sector, as well as the fruit and olive sector. It is held at the Parc des Expositions in Montpellier (France).

AI, ground-breaking innovations in hardware and software

Kubota's AIs system is based on computer vision and Artificial Intelligence (AI) that allows viewing crops with 3D cameras with a well-balanced degree of detail and time resolution. This provides the user with accurate information on crop dimensions, facilitating real-time, tree-by-tree sprayer adjustments for high precision crop protection products (PPP) and foliar fertilisation. This reduces pesticide use by up to 40%, fertiliser use by up to 20% and provides significant savings in agricultural inputs.

The AI innovation includes hardware and software as well as a cloud-based digital management tool with open source software integration to make this solution inclusive and extensible to third party digital service providers in the specialty crop sector.

The system is easy to install on the tractor (plug and play, PnP) and includes 3D vision cameras, an AI edge processing unit as well as accessories. All of these are designed for use in field conditions that demand high throughput and corresponding robustness.

The AIs software consists of a digital platform and an integration centre. This is of particular interest as the data collected, together with third-party prediction models, allows early detection of pests and diseases, phytosanitary treatments based on variable dosage application maps and yield prediction. Examples of use are the planning of thinning operations, irrigation and nutritional status of trees, level of crop development and vigour control, among others.