Problems and countermeasures for plant protection drones flying into the fields

[ China Agricultural Machinery Industry News ] The reporter learned from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision that China, as a large agricultural country, needs a large amount of agricultural plant protection operations every year. Compared with traditional plant protection operations, the plant maintenance operations of drones in recent years have obvious advantages such as low operating area cost, high spraying efficiency, and low consumption of medicinal water. This has led to a spurt of growth in the number of plant protection drones. According to statistics, in 2016, more than 2,500 agricultural plant protection drones were sold in Shenzhen, Xinjiang. In 2015, the nationwide sales volume was only 2,324. At the same time, due to the different levels of shortcomings in terms of technical level, testing and operation specifications, management and services, agricultural plant protection drones entered the field and fell into a bottleneck. The main issues are as follows:

First, the technical level is out of touch with plant protection needs. Guangdong is dominated by mountainous hilly terrain, with frequent ups and downs in field operations, and the average endurance of agricultural drone batteries is 8 to 15 minutes. Frequent take-off and landing and short battery life result in high temperature and unstable performance, which is not conducive to field operations. In addition, the low-altitude low-volume application technology is not mature, and it is prone to problems such as poor target performance and chemical solution deposition.

Second, the testing and operation specifications are relatively lagging. There are only 44 national military standards in the field of drones, and there are no national or industry standards in the civilian sector. The National Aviation Plant Protection Technology Innovation Alliance issued two group standards in March this year, but whether these standards can be used as a basis for quality testing or measurement verification remains to be discussed. At the same time, the operational specifications of the plant protection drones, such as safety operation specifications, pesticide spraying standards and identification standards, are all in a blank state, which is not conducive to demonstration and application.

Third, the management norms and service standards are “double missing”. On the one hand, there are no clear standards for drones in airworthiness certification, hierarchical management, and airspace integration. On the other hand, the socialized service system that is compatible with the agricultural plant protection drones has not been perfected, and the training, intermediary, insurance, leasing and other related services have not formed a standardized system. These have hindered the marketization and scale development of agricultural drones.

Suggestions:

First, the technical standard roadmap is prepared based on market demand. Taking demand as the starting point, strengthen the research on the technical standard system of agricultural plant protection drones and build an industry standard framework system. Focusing on the upstream and downstream technology development direction of the industry, we will sort out the basic and common core technical standards in terms of battery life and pesticide spraying, and guide and promote the “targeted innovation” of relevant enterprises to focus on the superior resources, and quickly break through the technical bottleneck.

The second is to develop a number of standards for testing and operation that are urgently needed in the market. A phased and step-by-step study on the plant protection drone standard system proposes the provincial local standards, group standards and alliance standard revision plans. Priority shall be given to the operation standards and technical specifications that are suitable for the actual situation of Guangdong Province and that can be accepted by most plant protection drone manufacturers, and that can meet the test and certification institutions' inspection of product quality.

The third is to explore the establishment of an agricultural plant protection drone certification standard system. On the basis of full investigation, the market standard is used to standardize the development of the industry in the form of “standard + certification”, and continuously cultivate and expand the market-oriented service system. Ultimately, the drone will be moved from a single consumer product to an industry-class drone with a complete solution.