OFweekRobotSince the beginning of this year, the development of my country’s plant protection drone industry has accelerated, and the market potential has been further released. But for now, the industry standard system is still lacking. In order to achieve sustainable development, it is imperative to speed up the formulation of standards.
Following the transition from the stage of publicity and performance to the stage of actual operation in 2016, my country’s plant protection drone industry has developed even more rapidly in 2017, showing an explosive state.
However, compared with the actual needs of farmers and agricultural production, problems such as the formulation of production standards and operating standards for plant protection drones in my country, and the lack of core technologies have plagued the development of the industry. How to solve these problems? Recently, at the 2nd Aviation Plant Protection Application Technology Development Exchange Conference held in Wuhan, Hubei, the participating experts had a heated discussion on related issues.
Quality and stability improvement
With the acceleration of my country’s agricultural modernization process, the rapid development of new business entities, the shortage of rural labor and the rapid increase in labor costs, the agricultural aviation plant protection with high operational efficiency, water saving, medicine saving and environmental protectionmechanicalIt has gained more and more favor from the market. According to experts, in 2016, there were 88,000 professional prevention and control organizations nationwide. Compared with the traditional spraying method of using small knapsack sprayers one by one, standardized and large-scale pest control and control organizations have developed rapidly in recent years, and are more efficient and high-quality. There is an urgent need for pesticide application machinery, and agricultural aviation plant protection will become a strategic emerging industry in my country’s agriculture, and what about the development of “hot” plant protection drones?
Guo Yongwang, deputy director of the Pharmaceutical Equipment Division of the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, believes that in recent years, my country’s plant protection drones have undergone 3 to 5 modifications, and the operational stability has been greatly improved. According to statistics, there are currently more than 400 drone manufacturers in my country, with various product categories, and the drug load covers various types ranging from 5 to 100 liters. The price ranges from two to three million yuan to several million yuan.
It is reported that in 2016, the operating area of my country’s plant protection drones exceeded 20 million mu, the number of which has exceeded 5,000, and the operating cost is 6-15 yuan per mu. There are 10 provinces with more than 300 plant protection drones, of which Hubei has reached more than 1,000. Fang Guobin, deputy researcher of Hubei Plant Protection Station, said: “In Hubei, the area of plant protection drones has increased significantly. This spring alone, the area of wheat and rapeseed control has exceeded that of last year. The area can reach about 10%, and because it has huge advantages in pesticide application, fertilization, pollination, etc., the future development prospects are bright.”
Chen Xiaobing, director of the National Plant Protection Machinery Testing Center, said: “In 2016, the development of my country’s small-scale plant protection drone industry was stable, and there was no large-scale blind expansion. The product quality has been further improved, and the product is easy to use, safe and reliable. All of them have been enhanced. Some products can realize the functions of constant altitude and constant speed flight, route planning, continuous spraying at breakpoints, variable spraying, dose detection, uncontrolled return, electronic fence, low voltage protection, broken propeller protection and other functions.”
“Plant protection drones have made great progress.” Wei Qiwen, Secretary of the Party Committee of the National Agricultural Technology Promotion Service Center, believes that at present, the performance of products produced by domestic drone companies has made great progress as a whole; domestic agricultural production, R&D units At present, active exploration has been carried out in the research and development of special agents for flight control; in addition to the application of traditional crops such as grain, plant protection drones have also achieved certain breakthroughs in the application of economic crops such as orchards and tea gardens.
The lack of technical lag standards affects the development of the industry
In recent years, plant protection drones have played an important role in the prevention and control of pests and diseases, and have been widely promoted and applied. Although the plant protection drone industry is developing rapidly, the number of product types is overwhelming. At the same time, the stability and some functions of plant protection drones have also improved a lot, but there are still many problems.
Among them, the development level of key technologies directly affects the operation effect. “In Japan, the flying height of drones does not exceed 1 meter, and by flying at low altitude and low speed, it can effectively replace the ground knapsack manual sprayer, while in China, the flying height of plant protection drones even exceeds 5 meters, which affects to a certain extent. Operation effect.” He Xiongkui, director of the Plant Protection Machinery and Application Technology Center of China Agricultural University, believes that the development of my country’s plant protection drones faces five major challenges: First, light load, short single operation cycle, not fully suitable for efficient aerial spraying operations. The second is the phenomenon of heavy spraying and leakage spraying of pesticides by drones. The airflow generated by the tail affects the downward pressure airflow, which is easy to cause pesticide droplets to drift away. Third, the development of core technologies is lagging behind, such as the research and development technologies of engines, flight control systems, and atomization systems. Fourth, there is a lack of special spray preparations. Fifth, there is a lack of relevant standards for plant protection drones.
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Not only does the “hardware” fail to pass the test, but many supporting standards are also missing. “At present, there are various types of plant protection drones in my country. During the test, it was found that there are still some problems with the products.” Chen Xiaobing pointed out that my country’s plant protection drone products have no signs, no logos, and no shells, and the manufacturing is rough; flight technical parameters . The technical parameters of the nozzle are marked at random, and the gap is large from the actual use; the flight attitude is unstable, the operation accuracy is not enough, and the flight at full load is prone to explosions, loss of control, etc.; the configuration of the spray device is unreasonable, and the nozzle will drop. , The pump can not suck the medicine, the spray is intermittent, the medicine liquid leaks during the flight, the heavy spray, the leakage of spray is serious and other problems. “What’s more serious is that there are no supporting national standards and industry standards for plant protection drones. At the same time, there is a lack of product manufacturing standards (technical requirements, testing methods), operation specifications, operation quality standards and personnel qualification management specifications, resulting in no standard for enterprises. Production, disorderly use; unprofessional pilots, unclear requirements for plant protection machinery, ignorance of the requirements for spraying operations, and unstable operation quality, resulting in some unnecessary accidents.” Chen Xiaobing said.
Guo Yongwang believes that since 2014, more and more domestic drone companies have begun to transform and produce plant protection drones, leading to chaos in the domestic plant protection drone industry. “my country’s plant protection drones are basically simple to assemble, and the research on spraying equipment and control technology is backward. Moreover, many companies’ spray equipment is welded by themselves, and the safety and spray effect are very poor. Many drones are produced. Enterprises only master the technology of machine flight, but do not understand the application technology, which directly leads to many plant protection drones that can only spray water, but cannot spray medicine, and often have various problems when working in the field. Machine theory research is insufficient.”
The application status of plant protection drones in Hubei is also a microcosm of its development. Fang Guobin said that the current lack of research on the application technology of plant protection drones, the lack of full coverage of special flight control agents, the high price and low subsidies have all affected the purchase and use of drones to a certain extent.
It is more “reliable” to formulate standards and specifications for flight defense
In order to play a better role in plant protection drones, in addition to its own “hardware”, the participating experts agreed that in the face of many problems in the current development of the plant protection drone industry, it is urgent to formulate standards and specifications.
Chen Xiaobing said that the formulation of operating specifications is very important and very necessary. For pilots, it is necessary to formulate a series of technical specifications for plant protection and application. In the face of different pests and diseases, how to adjust the operating equipment, operating height, and operating speed, etc., requires a lot of work. Experiment and develop relevant specifications. Since plant protection drones are different from fixed-wing and manned helicopters, and are also different from ground work equipment, he emphasized that “safety technical requirements and standards should be formulated according to the characteristics of plant protection drones, and the standards for fixed-wing and manned helicopters cannot be copied. Of course, these all require a large number of targeted verification tests, and the relevant standards should be released and implemented as soon as possible.”
Who sets the standards? What else are you going to develop? He Xiongkui suggested, “To vigorously strengthen the formulation of plant protection drone standards, it requires the full cooperation of the agricultural sector, the civil aviation management sector, and the air traffic management sector. The contents of the formulation include materials and components, manufacturing, management, and use.”
Stones from other hills, can learn. In Australia, any aircraft must pass the finalized product flight test procedure, meet the personality testing standards, and obtain relevant certificates; the pilot must complete 5 hours of standard drone operation to obtain the drone operating license…”Some foreign Development experience is worth learning from, so my country must further strengthen the formulation of China’s agricultural aviation technical standards and specifications, including product manufacturing, product testing, operator on-the-job training and qualification certification, operation quality and risk assessment.” Luo Xiwen, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, emphasized.
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