The accelerator of the future of agriculture! Development status and trend of agricultural robot

As the saying goes: “the people depend on food”, agriculture, as the basic industry and security industry of economic development, has always been highly valued by all countries.

In recent years, China has been actively improving its modern agricultural level by accelerating agricultural mechanization, among which, the emergence and application of agricultural robots have greatly changed the traditional farming mode and brought new changes to the development of modern agriculture in our country.

Let’s take a look at the development status and trends of agricultural robots.

Agricultural robot refers to the intelligent robot used in agricultural production, which is a new generation of unmanned automatic operation machinery that can be controlled by different program software to adapt to various operations, can feel and adapt to crop types or environmental changes, and has artificial intelligence such as detection (such as vision) and calculation.

Compared with industrial robots or robots in other fields, the working environment of agricultural robots is changeable, mainly in non-structural environment, and the work task is extremely challenging. Therefore, in general, the requirements for the degree of intelligence of agricultural robots are much higher than those of robots in other fields.

2.jpg

First, how to produce agricultural robots

The history of agricultural robots is divided into two stages: before 2000, agricultural robots were mechanical and electrical automation equipment, and after 2000, they were automation equipment that joined new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine vision.

Since the 1980s, some developed countries have begun to devote themselves to the research and development of agricultural robots due to the small number of people, and have successively developed a variety of agricultural production robots such as grafting, cutting, transplanting and picking. The emergence and application of robots in the agricultural field has brought strong impetus to the development of agricultural automation, precision and intelligence in these countries.

Second, the development history of agricultural robots

In 2007, the Ag Tracker, which scans fruits and collects soil and seed data, was invented.

In 2012, a robot called the Harvest Transporter HV-100, which is capable of moving potted saplings in a plant breeding room, was developed. In the same year, the Lettuce robot Lettuce bot, which can remove excess seeds from lettuce fields, was born.

In 2012, the Wall-Ye robot, which cuts or cultivates vines, collected data on soil health and grape stocks.

In 2013, the strawberry picking robot was born. The robot uses two digital cameras to photograph the color of strawberries, judge the ripeness of strawberries, and pick ripe strawberries.

Robots are currently being developed to grow rice, which can analyze the barren conditions of fields and other environments.

Third, classification of agricultural robots

Agricultural robots are divided into fertilization robots, ploughing robots, weeding robots, spraying robots, vegetable grafting robots, harvesting robots (such as tomato harvesting robots), picking robots (such as strawberry picking robots, picking citrus robots) and so on.

Field production of agricultural robots

Agricultural robots for field use include field seeding robot, field harvesting robot, field plant protection robot, field farming robot and field transplanting robot.

Field fruit and vegetable picking operation is one of the most time-consuming and laborious production links in the production chain. In addition, the picking operation is seasonal, labor intensity, high cost, so to ensure the timely harvest of fruits, reduce the intensity of harvesting operations and labor costs is an important way to ensure the increase of agricultural income. However, due to the complexity of the picking operation, the degree of picking automation is still low. At present, fruit picking operations at home and abroad are basically manual, and its cost accounts for about 30% to 50% of the cost, and the time is relatively concentrated, the amount of labor is large, and the working hours are tight.

As an important type of agricultural robot, fruit and vegetable picking robot in field has great development potential in reducing labor intensity and production cost, improving labor productivity and product quality, and ensuring timely fruit harvesting.