The autonomous robot Kubota Agri Concept has been included among the one hundred products identified over the past century by the World Intellectual Property Organization as examples of pleasing and rational design.
It is the only agricultural machine on the list and was selected from more than two million product
In 1925, to protect the originality of stylistic lines that may characterize any product, the so-called “Hague System” was established, a set of regulations overseen by the World Intellectual Property Organization, abbreviated in English as Wipo.
This agency is part of the United Nations system; it was founded in 1967, is headquartered in Geneva, and operates on the basis of 26 international treaties, interacting with 193 member states. Its role is essentially unique and recognized worldwide, to the extent that it acts globally as a repository for patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the aforementioned “Hague System,” last year WIPO decided to identify, among the more than two million designs registered with its offices, one hundred products that can claim to have set the guidelines for industrial design, understood as the combination of style and functionality.
Among the hundred products selected after extensive deliberation is also “Agri Concept,” an autonomous and electric robot presented in 2024 by Kubota as a cultivation system designed to address the growing food demands of the global population and, at the same time, the increasing shortage of agricultural labor. This latter issue was further addressed by Kubota with a second robot, developed in collaboration with the Norwegian company Kilte and named “Ax-1.”
Robot Ax-1 by Kubota and Kilte
Already in production and active in several European countries, it performs highly precise targeted weeding thanks to a set of cameras and an artificial intelligence system that identifies each individual weed and then controls dedicated sprayers to apply treatment only to the detected plant, using an amount of herbicide aligned with the weed’s growth stage.
“Ax-1” is therefore not a sprayer in the traditional sense but rather a micro-droplet distributor capable of reducing herbicide use by 95 percent for the same treated area and weed control effectiveness. The precision of its operations reaches six millimeters; the machine features a modular design to allow customization according to the needs of each individual farm, weighs only 300 kilograms, and can operate 24 hours a day while also being remotely controlled.
Title: The autonomous robot Kubota Agri Concept: beautiful and technological
Translation with ChatGPT
