After graduating from university, Shandong young man Zhu Meinan went to Beijing to work as a research assistant for an agricultural professor. Seeing the convenience brought by full mechanization to agriculture, he resigned and returned to his hometown, founding a plant protection drone company with several friends.
They have expanded the digital services of plant protection drones and developed a drone smart service platform similar to Didi Taxi, which has brought a cumulative income increase of over 10 million yuan to the farmers’ flying hands group. Some flying hands work 30000 acres a year, with an annual income of 156000 yuan. Farmers have a lot of experience and technology, as well as many good ideas. After they come into contact with new things, they collide and create different sparks, which makes me feel that doing agriculture is a very interesting thing, “said Zhu Meinan.
Zhu Meinan is a native of Jiaozhou City City, Qingdao. After graduating from the Qingdao University of Science and Technology with the dual majors of bioengineering and international trade in 2012, he went to China Agricultural University to work with a professor as an assistant in mulberry and field crop production management.
At that time, mechanization was basically achieved in the four stages of farming, planting, management, and harvesting in agriculture. However, mechanization in field management has always been a difficult problem to solve. Around 2015, drones began to be used as pilot prototypes in agriculture. “At that time, the cost of drones was very high and their operational performance was very unstable, so they could only be considered as a demonstration tool.” However, Zhu Meinan believed that this was an opportunity. He met several friends, including one who had engaged in research on police drones and firefighting drones. They immediately agreed to start a business and apply drones to the agricultural field.
So, they raised 1 million yuan and returned to Qingdao in January 2017 to establish Qingdao Yiliansu Agricultural Technology Company. “In fact, the first machine was developed before the company was established.
At first, the family was more opposed to them returning from the big city to start agricultural businesses. When the product is not produced, it is also difficult to communicate well with the family. “Only a few people can do what they want with their heads closed, working all night long
Research and development is not smooth sailing, and has encountered multiple failures. What impressed me most was that there were some deviations in the early control of our machine, which could easily lead to inaccurate positioning of the drone. In the fields, there were often trees or power poles, and during testing, there were many times when the plane flew over. Even if the deviation was only one meter, it was easy to hit the tree in front. In case of a collision, we might have to push down the entire mechanical structure of the machine and start over again.
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