The first unmanned farm in Lianyungang City to be cultivated by “Hui”

China has the world’s largest 5G network and first-class satellite navigation system. What is the prospect of these two countries working together in agriculture? The first unmanned farm in the city built by Haizhou District Agricultural Development Group has achieved “smart farming” with the support of “Beidou+5G” technology.

Recently, in the unmanned farm machinery warehouse of Haizhou Agricultural Development Group, several young people born in the 1990s are conducting technical debugging on unmanned rice transplanters. Through various control commands, staff can remotely ignite, deploy, accelerate, decelerate, and turn around unmanned agricultural machinery in the command room or mobile phone. Unmanned agricultural machinery is the core of unmanned farms, and its development and application are also the best embodiment of the cooperation between “Beidou+5G”. Beidou high-precision positioning is based on centimeter level high-precision positioning, and agricultural machinery can automatically drive according to the planned path, with an accuracy error of no more than 2.5 centimeters.

Wang Zhigao, the project operation and maintenance manager of Shanghai Lianshi Navigation Technology Co., Ltd., who came to provide business guidance, introduced that relying on Beidou satellite navigation and positioning technology, they have achieved breakthroughs in key technical aspects such as high-precision positioning core algorithms, chips, boards, terminals, and achieved domestic substitution for imported unmanned driving technology for agricultural machinery.

The 5G network can simultaneously meet the capacity requirements of automatic driving, precise operation, real-time video retrieval and multi machine collaboration. By adding agricultural machinery auto drive system to the original agricultural machinery, the whole process automation of farming, planting, management and harvesting can be completed. At the same time, by installing a remote operation monitoring terminal, real-time feedback of operation quality and accurate calculation of operation area can be achieved.

Zhang Liang, Deputy Manager of Haizhou Marketing Center of Lianyungang Mobile Company, said, “Our project has deployed 5G private network base stations, utilizing the large bandwidth and low latency characteristics of 5G. Currently, we have achieved high-speed interconnection of more than ten brands of agricultural machinery equipment such as tractors, transplanters, harvesters, and plant protection machines. At the same time, combined with Beidou high-precision positioning technology, we have achieved centimeter level operation of various equipment, running through the entire process of grain crop cultivation, management, and harvesting.

The “5G+Beidou” has improved the accuracy of agricultural production operations, intelligent agricultural machinery has improved the level of agricultural productivity, the Internet of Things has updated production conditions in real-time, assisted in refined production, and big data and artificial intelligence have achieved the “digitization” of production and operation decisions. The unmanned farm project of Haizhou Agricultural Development Group plans to use 1000 acres of land as a demonstration area to build a smart farm. It comprehensively utilizes technologies such as 5G, Beidou high-precision positioning, big data, and combines drone remote sensing and IoT monitoring to create a new benchmark for unmanned farms.
Wang Bin, Deputy General Manager of Yizhinong Company of Haizhou Agricultural Development Group, introduced that during busy agricultural times, labor and machinery are particularly tight, and the construction of unmanned farms can effectively solve this problem. During the autumn harvest and planting last year, unmanned farms were able to save around 10% in terms of operational efficiency.
With more and more 5G applications’ landing and blooming ‘in the agricultural field, digital agriculture has great potential. The popularization of various advanced agricultural machinery, from skilled farming to “intelligent” farming, has led to a continuous decrease in human investment in agricultural production today. As more and more high-quality talents and high-tech equipment are invested in agricultural production, agriculture has become a promising industry, and food security is also more guaranteed.