In 2017, precision agriculture broke out, what kind of technology can lead the way?

[ China Agricultural Machinery Industry News ] In recent years, the technical hotspots have been changing. In the past, major technological updates may be scaled by year, and the technological advancement interval of plant protection drones has been greatly shortened. In 2016, plant protection drones have been added. : Auxiliary operation mode (AB point), terrain follow-up, obstacle avoidance, full autonomous operation mode, RTK high-precision positioning technology, about halfway through 2017, what is the technical style this year?

According to industry insiders, the key technologies for the development of UAVs in the future are eight directions: high-precision location service, one-station multi-machine full-automatic collaborative operation, automatic dosing and battery replacement, farmland mapping technology, spray control, and battery technology. Revolution, Internet of Things and cloud computing, agricultural plant protection big data.

Among them, the development of big data has attracted much attention because companies carrying Internet genes have gradually stepped into the agricultural plant protection industry.

Field management must pay attention to big data

The status of big data in agriculture should not be underestimated. On May 19th, the 2nd Aviation Plant Protection Technology Application Forum was held in Jiangcheng Wuhan. The meeting discussed the development direction of plant protection drones in the next three years, in addition to the reliability of the body platform. The study of sex, spray system optimization, pharmaceuticals and auxiliaries also involves the application of big data and clouds in agriculture.

2017 Aviation Plant Protection Application Technology Development Conference / Map Source Network

Although plant protection drones are currently in a hot state, they have to admit that the current status of China's agriculture is still very extensive. Most enterprises involved in agriculture are proposing the concept of “mechanical substitution”. Mechanization is achieved from seeding to harvesting. In this process, the agriculture-related enterprises are thinking more about how to increase the rate, how to replace 20 labors with a machine, or even 30 labors.

It is true that such a strategy is necessary in China, where the population is aging, rural areas are hollow, and urbanization is developing rapidly. However, the agricultural gap between China's agriculture and developed countries such as Europe and the United States, in addition to different agricultural equipment, is more of a difference in the thinking of field management. A particularly obvious point is reflected in agricultural big data.

The drone is actually an air data collector. The plant protection drone is different from the aerial drone with camera. Although the photo is not directly obtained, the plant protection drone is measured before the operation. . In addition, what kind of medicine is applied during the operation of the plant protection machine, and when it is applied, can be obtained through long-term data analysis. This data is more important than the picture. In the future, with the widespread promotion of plant protection drones, it will become a big data portal. The back-end big data mining and integration with industry applications will be the core of the drone service business.

Yifei Zhikong realized that this was an opportunity to propose an agricultural plant protection drone IoT and cloud computing solution in due course.

The drone is not "no one", one "good guy" three gangs

The eight technical development directions mentioned above have already been involved in research. In the future, Yifei Zhikong will focus on technology development and breakthroughs in one-stop multi-machine full-automatic collaborative operations, Internet of Things and cloud computing technologies, and agricultural plant protection big data.

Chen Donghua, deputy general manager of Yifei Zhikong, disclosed two data at the 2nd Aviation Plant Protection Technology Application Forum. The shipments of Yifei Zhikong's 2017 flight control increased several times compared with the same period of last year. The amount is more than double the amount of sales last year. From there, you can see the rapid development of plant protection drones.

Chen Donghua, deputy general manager of Feizhi Control / Map Source Network

The role of plant protection drones in agriculture is by no means just a simple tool. Now the application rate of plant protection drones is not high. In addition, the labor-intensive operation mode is obvious, and there is no large-scale operation and use.

The plant protection drone wants to go further. In addition to the stability of the body, the improvement of the spray system, and the development of the matching agent, it is also worth noting that its mode of operation needs to be improved.

Plant protection drones now have the name of “no one”, and even more labor than manned machines. When a plant protection drone is in operation, it needs to be equipped with three operators. An operator, an observer, and a ground.

The operator is operating the drone / map source network

Chen Donghua believes that completely unmanned operation is the future of drones. Some people hope that the cost of labor will fall. As the rural hollowing out becomes more and more serious, in the foreseeable future, the cost of labor will only rise, it will not fall at all, and the labor cost must be reduced.

In fact, the current technical progress of plant protection drones has been progressing towards unmanned. For example, in the process of drone operation, adding auxiliary mode (AB point) can save one manpower; After that, as long as one person can complete the work; if one station multi-machine system is used, one person can control 2 to 3 drones, the labor cost is reduced to 0.3-0.5; on this basis, the automatic use By adding the battery replacement function, it is possible to reduce the labor cost of the drone to as close as possible to zero.

Chen Donghua pointed out that this requires multi-party efforts, collaboration, flight control, machine, charger and other parties to work together, each ring of technology can break through. He believes that the technical threshold is not insurmountable, but more of a business model.

Cloud computing to set up the stage, homework to sing

Chen Donghua believes that the difficulty in collaborative operation is that a plot of land is operated by multiple aircraft, and there is a need for division of labor between multiple aircraft. "Collaborative work means that by performing calculation and analysis on a work task, the task is completed under the coordination of multiple aircrafts, and the operation time of the work due to the replacement of electricity and medicine is reduced."

In order to realize the scale application of plant protection drones, it is necessary to rely on a powerful and intelligent brain to process various kinds of feedback information at high speed, and dispatch each drone connected to this brain.

Speaking of it, many manufacturers have already added RTK (High-Precision Satellite Differential Positioning Technology) system to the flight control system to achieve the positioning of the aircraft, thus achieving the purpose of flight operations. At present, a set of RTK systems consists of at least two parts (airplane and ground), and one aircraft corresponds to one RTK system (ie one aircraft-side RTK equipment and one ground-end RTK equipment), but the expensive cost hinders RTK technology. Popularity. Yifei Zhikong tried to reduce the purchase cost of RTK system by reducing the input of RTK equipment, thus promoting the popularization of operations. The ground-end and airborne 1:N mode solutions came into being.

In the operation control of the aircraft, Yifei Zhikong specially developed the Baisi Farm Android mobile phone ground station software for plant protection users, replaced the digital radio station with 2/3/4G communication network, and established communication connection with the aircraft through the Baisi cloud platform.

Chen Donghua introduced that as the core of a cloud- based agricultural plant protection drone IoT solution, Baisi Zhiyun is not only an aircraft dispatching platform, but also links all aspects related to agricultural plant protection to become an information resource sharing platform. Similar to WeChat, with the ground station as the endpoint, establish different WeChat groups. The difference is that the WeChat group shares information, while the ground station shares information such as land parcels, flying hands, and aircraft.

Next, Bai Sizhi will further strengthen the concept of the plant protection team and separate the three elements of human, machine and land in the traditional flight defense operation. The process of creating a flight defense mission is the process of selecting a land parcel. After the mission is released to the plant protection team, the plant protection team leader can assign the task or claim the task by himself. At this time, the task is combined with the person. In actual operation, the plant protection machine It is optional. At this time, the plant protection machine is also combined with the task. The three tasks of the person, the ground and the machine can be started. The best thing to do is to connect the three elements together.

"If there is an unexpected situation, for example, this flying hand can't work today, but the plane and the land have been confirmed. You can still complete the flight defense operation by changing one person," Chen Donghua said. "Our goal in the future is The realization of the three elements can be flexibly replaced, and one element has a problem. As long as the other two elements are determined, replacing one of the elements does not affect the operation."

Fly defense still depends on the effect, and spraying is the prerequisite for ensuring the efficacy. At present, agricultural plant protection has been emphasizing the application of pesticides. How to ensure the application of pesticides? The agent coming out of the drone's spray system can be used in real-world applications where it is necessary to apply the drug, which is very strict in positioning requirements. It depends on several aspects, one is to obtain location information, the more likely the location is to operate, the second is the stability of the flight platform of the aircraft, and the third is the application of the spray system to the downstream airflow. If the coordination is not good, it is easy to cause drift. Spraying is the main development direction of agriculture in the future, and it is also the direction for the industry to strive for tackling.

In the future, Baisi Zhiyun will also access professional meteorological data to assist in the operation of plant protection drones; implant electronic fences to ensure legalization of operations; enrich operational statistics and data; and improve resource sharing mechanisms within plant protection teams Continue to promote the realization of one-stop multi-machine collaborative work.

Best thinks not only reduces the cost of using equipment and personnel, but the meaning behind the data is another important meaning. It makes the future full of possibilities. These data can be used as the basis for government supervision. It is also the basis and reference for subsidy applications. It is convenient for the whole machine company to track its own products, and it is also convenient for service enterprises to calculate the operation status and evaluate the performance of the flying hand. And it provides a premise for more in-depth analysis of data needs in the future, full of imagination.