Key Takeaways
- NTT, Kubota Corporation, and NTT DOCOMO have jointly demonstrated a communications system capable of maintaining stable video transmission for the remote operation and monitoring of robotic agricultural machinery in mountainous terrain.
- The system combines mobile and satellite communication links through multi-link control technology, enabling satellite connectivity to supplement mobile networks when signal quality deteriorates in hilly or obstructed areas.
- NTT DOCOMO's video control technology automatically adjusts compression based on predicted bandwidth, prioritizing image quality in critical areas such as the machinery's travel path and crop rows while compressing non-critical areas of the feed.
- Mountainous and hilly regions account for approximately 40% of Japan's cultivated land, making communication stability in these zones a prerequisite for the practical deployment of robotic farm equipment.
- NTT plans to exhibit the technology at Tsukuba Forum 2026, scheduled for May 27–28, 2026, and will continue advancing the system toward fully autonomous agricultural operations in Japan and internationally.
Kubota, NTT, and DOCOMO Demonstrate Stable Video Transmission for Remote Farm Machinery in Mountainous Areas
Kubota Corporation, NTT, Inc., and NTT DOCOMO, INC. have completed a joint demonstration experiment confirming that stable video transmission for the remote operation and monitoring of robotic agricultural machinery can be maintained in mountainous terrain. The trial applied multipath control across combined mobile and satellite communication links alongside automated video compression technology, sustaining acceptable video visibility under fluctuating network conditions.
The demonstration addresses a practical barrier to deploying robotic agricultural equipment across Japan's hilly and mountainous farmland, which accounts for roughly 40% of the country's total cultivated land area. In these environments, mobile network quality is prone to degradation due to terrain and physical obstructions, creating the risk of delays and disconnections that directly affect the safety of remotely operated equipment.
How the Kubota and NTT System Works
The communication architecture relies on two core technologies. The first is NTT's multi-link control platform, which monitors the communication quality of both mobile and satellite links in real time and routes data traffic to whichever connection provides better performance at a given moment. When mobile signal quality falls below acceptable levels, satellite links automatically compensate, maintaining continuous data flow.
The second is NTT DOCOMO's video control technology, which dynamically adjusts video compression based on predicted available bandwidth. Rather than uniformly degrading the entire video feed under constrained conditions, the system preserves image quality in operationally critical areas of the frame — specifically the machinery's travel path and any crops in view — while applying greater compression to peripheral areas. The result is a video feed that remains operationally usable even when overall bandwidth is limited.
In the demonstration, Kubota provided the robotic agricultural machinery and the test field, NTT contributed its Cradio wireless quality prediction technology and the Cooperative Infrastructure Platform for multi-link control, and DOCOMO supplied the adaptive video compression system.
Outlook for Autonomous and Remote Agricultural Operations
The three companies indicated that the demonstrated technologies will be applied to improve the practicality of remote operation and monitoring systems for agricultural machinery, with the longer-term objective of supporting fully autonomous farm operations. Japan's government is concurrently advancing regulatory reforms that would permit robotic agricultural machinery to operate on public roads under remote monitoring conditions, making reliable communications infrastructure a prerequisite for that policy pathway. NTT stated it will continue to develop satellite-based solutions through its NTT C89 brand and pursue social implementation of data-driven agriculture both domestically and internationally.
