Plant protection drone: bottleneck in the development of the voyage

Plant protection drone: bottleneck in the development of the voyage

With the first publication of “Agricultural Aviation” in Central Document No. 1 in 2014, the UAV plant protection industry has developed rapidly. However, at the same time of industrial development, there are many problems such as lack of technical training in operation and expensive purchases by farmers. The industry believes that the current UAV application in the plant protection market is still the initial stage of "concept > practical", plant protection drone is still in the absence stage.

Market "New Blue Ocean"

China's UAV plant protection industry has been developed for more than ten years, but the current situation facing the industry is "satisfaction is not called", the overall level of the industry is relatively low, so the agricultural drone has not been widely promoted in China.

The data show that the agricultural drone is an agricultural modernization tool that can be sprayed in the air to help the agriculture save manpower, material resources, financial resources, save water and save medicine. The plant protection drone operation has the advantages of long-distance remote control, no terrain limitation, high spraying efficiency and safe operation, which makes the application prospect very broad. Therefore, experts in the industry believe that the agricultural plant protection or the drone industry “new blue sea” .

“Professional drone companies have transplanted the advantages of the flight control field into the field of plant protection, which is expected to bring broader development prospects to plant protection drones,” said Xiongkui, director of the Plant Protection Machinery and Application Technology Center of China Agricultural University.

According to our reporter, the plant protection drone market in the golden development stage is growing at a rate of 20% to 30% per year. The industry estimates that this will be a big market with a total of 10 billion.

According to statistics, as of December 2015, there were more than 400 R&D and production enterprises in China, among which more than 100 companies produced plant protection drones.

With the development of agricultural modernization, the future use of agricultural drones will not only be planted and planted, but also the monitoring of agricultural conditions such as pest monitoring and agricultural exploration will further deepen the development of the agricultural drone market, plus the rural land circulation in China. With the continuous advancement of moderately-scale agricultural operations, contiguous farmland management requires more high-quality agricultural machinery to complete.

“After many years of practice and development, Tianyi Hechuang has mastered the monitoring and forecasting technology of agricultural pests and diseases based on satellite remote sensing data, and can use the surveying and mapping data to complete the analysis of the spraying plots and the automatic setting of the aircraft routes, and finally integrate on the network platform. These data provide big data support and deployment management services for users of plant protection drones.” Tianyi Hechuang CEO Tian Tian was held at the launch of Tianyi Hechuang’s fourth-generation electric multi-rotor plant protection drone TY4SA-10 It is said that this big data-based network platform is based on monitoring and forecasting, so that users can obtain pest and disease information in advance to make reasonable deployment and further improve the utilization rate of the aircraft.

According to industry insiders, the future "machine substitution" will play a major role in the development of modern agriculture. Facing the opportunity, the plant protection drone enterprises should pay more attention to the construction of the whole industry chain and do a good job in supporting the products while doing a good job.

Development bottleneck to be solved

Despite the huge potential of the UAV plant protection market, it faces many problems.

The industry believes that at present, there are four factors that restrict the promotion and application of plant protection drones. First, the state's support policies are not perfect. At present, the country has not introduced a subsidy policy for plant protection drone purchase. It takes a hundred and twenty thousand yuan to purchase a plant protection drone, plus the cost of use, maintenance and maintenance, which is a big burden for farmers. Second, the service is lagging behind, and professional operators and service personnel are seriously inadequate. Third, the cost is high, the core components rely on imports, and the company is also under greater economic pressure in research and development and manufacturing, resulting in high retail prices. Fourth, there is no promotion of joint efforts, and only relying on the promotion of enterprises is limited.

"At present, 80% of the plant protection machines on the market are unqualified, and it is not practical in the spraying operation." He Xiongkui believes that the technology of flight control systems and flight platforms of plant protection drones in China still needs to continue to make great efforts.

Tian Tian pointed out that the majority of farmers are not ideal users of plant protection drones. The number of people in this group is large and scattered, making it difficult to systematically and effectively train them, which makes them unprofessional in their operation. On the other hand, the use of drones by farmers is too low, further reducing the proficiency of the operation and the daily maintenance level of the machine, thus forming a vicious circle of “less use – high accidents – less use”. In addition, too low usage rates are not economically viable. “The plant protection drone industry should position end users in professional socialized agricultural service organizations that are gradually developing and developing. These organizations are relatively strict in management and more professional in operation, which can form reasonable use and effective maintenance of aircraft, and can significantly reduce accidents. The rate, which will form the necessary conditions for the large-scale promotion of plant protection drones."

He Xiukui said that China needs to speed up the research on plant protection drone flight platform, flight control system, atomization system and pesticide application technology, and accelerate the research and development of specific pesticide preparations and application standards and testing standards. At the same time, the state also needs to introduce relevant subsidy policies in order to allow the industry to develop rapidly and healthily.

In Tian Tian's view, the important characteristics of agricultural plant protection aircraft should be “skin and durable”, which should be able to adapt to the needs of large-scale, high-strength, continuous operation of the agricultural plant protection industry, as well as the harsh use, storage environment and extensive operation. "The aircraft does not fall, the plant protection drone is more suitable in the case of long-term, high-intensity use and lack of maintenance. The key is to minimize the drop, and to minimize the loss after the fall, and Immediately repaired to ensure that time and economic costs are manageable."

The industry believes that to cultivate the UAV plant protection market, not only technical issues, purchase subsidies, technical training, after-sales maintenance, etc. are the "standard" for the promotion of agricultural machinery, and are indispensable.

(Original title: "Call is not called", plant protection drone tens of billions of market to be developed)