#Agricultural Machinery

Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 4, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: Agricultural Drones — Airframe Design for Spraying and Growth Sensing

The term 'agricultural drone' actually covers two systems with very different characters: spray drones that carry pesticides and fertilizer, and sensing drones that measure crop condition. This article reads through actual machine specs and public materials the spray system of tank/pump/nozzle, NDVI as a growth indicator, and the structure of Japan's Civil Aeronautics Act and flight-level regulations.

Fundamentals · 9 min Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 4, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: Livestock Machinery — Automating the Milking Robot, TMR, Manure Removal, and Individual Cow Management

A milking robot runs on a voluntary system in which the cow herself chooses when she's milked; a TMR mixer turns an inhomogeneous granular material — feed — into a single uniform meal; manure-removal robots and individual-management sensors keep barn hygiene and reproductive management running without a break. This article reads through equations and public materials current products including the Lely Astronaut, DeLaval VMS V300, domestic TMR mixers, Orion Machinery's BARN-E, and Farmnote Color.

Fundamentals · 17 min Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 4, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: RTK Guidance — From Satellite Positioning to Autonomous Steering and Variable-Rate Application

RTK-GNSS delivers centimeter-class position, but by itself it steers nothing. This article works through the engineering chain that makes 'RTK guidance' actually reduce labor and sharpen precision in tractors and rice transplanters: AB-line/curve/contour guidance patterns, the control loop that feeds lateral deviation back into steering angle, and the link to yield and application maps.

Fundamentals · 10 min Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 4, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: Seeders and Fertilizer Applicators — How to Keep Delivering One Seed, One Fixed Amount, Continuously

A seeder isn't a 'machine that sows seeds' — it's a metering machine that cuts an irregular granular material, the seed, into a fixed interval. This article reads through equations and public materials the principles of mechanical-plate and pneumatic (vacuum/pressure) metering, broadcast/band/variable-rate fertilization, and current product examples.

Fundamentals · 10 min Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 3, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: The Combine Harvester — From Cutting to Cleaning and Automation

The head-feeding combine harvester that cuts rice, threshes it, separates the grain, and stores it in a tank. This article reads the combine as mechanical engineering — why it originated in Japan, the internal material flow, the equations used to measure loss, yield/quality sensors, the published specs of current models, and where autonomous operation and electrification stand today.

Fundamentals · 18 min Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 3, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: The Rice Transplanter — How Seedlings Are Moved Into the Paddy, One Hill at a Time

A rice transplanter is not just a machine that carries seedlings. This article reads it through equations and public materials — the feed system that cuts a seedling mat down to one hill at a time, the trajectory of the planting claw, row/hill spacing and depth, paddy-surface tracking via floats, and everything from walk-behind machines to robotic units.

Fundamentals · 21 min Agricultural Machinery Engineering September 3, 2026

Agricultural Machinery Engineering 101: The Tractor — From Traction and PTO to the Three-Point Linkage and Autonomous Driving

A tractor is a portable power source that splits the engine's output among wheels/crawlers, the PTO, and the hydraulic three-point linkage. This article explains, as mechanical engineering, traction and slip, tillage-depth control, RTK-GNSS, soil/yield sensors, and where electrification stands.

Fundamentals · 18 min Sensors & Hardware August 16, 2026 Lab

How GNSS Works and Key Products — u-blox, Trimble, Fixposition

RTK combines satellite positioning with correction data from a base station, shrinking the several-meter error of standalone GNSS positioning down to centimeter level. We work through how dual-frequency positioning cancels ionospheric delay, how u-blox's ZED-F9P drove low-cost RTK into the mainstream, Trimble RTX and Japan's own Michibiki (QZSS), and the real-world example of Kubota's nationwide network of 342 RTK base stations for farm machinery — and how each of these changes what positioning accuracy you actually get.

Fundamentals · 13 min Corporate Research July 20, 2026

Corporate Research: Agricultural Machinery — Kubota vs. Yanmar

Kubota runs 2.5-3x Yanmar's revenue. From company history and a five-year scale comparison, to a large-tractor and combine-harvester spec showdown, autonomous driving technology, domestic facility footprints, and both companies' mid-term management plans.

Industry research · 13 min