• Autonomous Navigation and Automatic Target Spraying Robot for Orchards

    Subjects: Agriculture, Forestry,Livestock & Aquatic Products Science >> Other Disciplines of Agriculture, Forestry,Livestock & Aquatic Products Science submitted time 2023-02-17 Cooperative journals: 《智慧农业(中英文)》

    Abstract: To realize the autonomous navigation and automatic target spraying of intelligent plant protect machinery in orchard, in this study, an autonomous navigation and automatic target spraying robot for orchards was developed. Firstly, a single 3D light detection and ranging (LiDAR) was used to collect fruit trees and other information around the robot. The region of interest (ROI) was determined using information on the fruit trees in the orchard (plant spacing, plant height, and row spacing), as well as the fundamental LiDAR parameters. Additionally, it must be ensured that LiDAR was used to detect the canopy information of a whole fruit tree in the ROI. Secondly, the point clouds within the ROI was two-dimension processing to obtain the fruit tree center of mass coordinates. The coordinate was the location of the fruit trees. Based on the location of the fruit trees, the row lines of fruit tree were obtained by random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm. The center line (navigation line) of the fruit tree row within ROI was obtained through the fruit tree row lines. The robot was controlled to drive along the center line by the angular velocity signal transmitted from the computer. Next, the ATRS's body speed and position were determined by encoders and the inertial measurement unit (IMU). And the collected fruit tree zoned canopy information was corrected by IMU. The presence or absence of fruit tree zoned canopy was judged by the logical algorithm designed. Finally, the nozzles were controlled to spray or not according to the presence or absence of corresponding zoned canopy. The conclusions were obtained. The maximum lateral deviation of the robot during autonomous navigation was 21.8 cm, and the maximum course deviation angle was 4.02�. Compared with traditional spraying, the automatic target spraying designed in this study reduced pesticide volume, air drift and ground loss by 20.06%, 38.68% and 51.40%, respectively. There was no significant difference between the automatic target spraying and the traditional spraying in terms of the percentage of air drift. In terms of the percentage of ground loss, automatic target spraying had 43% at the bottom of the test fruit trees and 29% and 28% at the middle of the test fruit trees and the left and right neighboring fruit trees. But in traditional spraying, the percentage of ground loss was, in that sequence, 25%, 38%, and 37%. The robot developted can realize autonomous navigation while ensuring the spraying effect, reducing the pesticides volume and loss.

  • Key Technologies and Equipment for Smart Orchard Construction and Prospects

    Subjects: Agriculture, Forestry,Livestock & Aquatic Products Science >> Other Disciplines of Agriculture, Forestry,Livestock & Aquatic Products Science submitted time 2023-02-17 Cooperative journals: 《智慧农业(中英文)》

    Abstract: Traditional orchard production is facing problems of labor shortage due to the aging, difficulties in the management of agricultural equipment and production materials, and low production efficiency which can be expected to be solved by building a smart orchard that integrates technologies of Internet of Things(IoT), big data, equipment intelligence, et al. In this study, based on the objectives of full mechanization and intelligent management, a smart orchard was built in Pinggu district, an important peaches and pears fruit producing area of Beijing. The orchard covers an aera of more than 30 hm2 in Xiying village, Yukou town. In the orchard, more than 10 kinds of information acquisition sensors for pests, diseases, water, fertilizers and medicines are applied, 28 kinds of agricultural machineries with intelligent technical support are equipped. The key technologies used include: intelligent information acquisition system, integrated water and fertilizer management system and intelligent pest management system. The intelligent operation equipment system includes: unmanned lawn mower, intelligent anti-freeze machine, trenching and fertilizer machine, automatic driving crawler, intelligent profiling variable sprayer, six-rotor branch-to-target drone, multi-functional picking platform and finishing and pruning machine, etc. At the same time, an intelligent management platform has been built in the smart orchard. The comparison results showed that, smart orchard production can reduce labor costs by more than 50%, save pesticide dosage by 30% ~ 40%, fertilizer dosage by 25% ~ 35%, irrigation water consumption by 60% ~ 70%, and comprehensive economic benefits increased by 32.5%. The popularization and application of smart orchards will further promote China's fruit production level and facilitate the development of smart agriculture in China.