"Drone + Agriculture": need to break through the restrictions to fill the agricultural short board

[China Agricultural Machinery Industry News] China's current UAV industry is facing the opportunity to cut into this industry from any angle, as long as the full advantage of its own advantages, balance the market drive and technology investment two wheels, it can be in the traditional industry Find potential segments in the megatrends of the upgrade.

"Drone + Agriculture": need to break through the restrictions to fill the agricultural short board

Today, drone technology is bringing people one after another surprise. From military to civilian use, from aerial photography to agriculture and forestry, even if consumer-grade drones are suffering from stagnation, the agricultural services of "unmanned aerial agriculture" have turned out to be born, and the impact of new technologies on industrial upgrading can be described as more blooming.

It can be seen that the combination of drone technology and various traditional industries is creating new services or products, which is an extremely important industrial upgrading direction. And "unmanned agriculture" is now the right time.

UAVs are heavily involved in various traditional fields, and the market capacity is very impressive in the future.

From the 1917 unmanned aerial vehicle - Sperry air torpedo was born, and now nearly 100 years, drone technology is no longer the same. Especially after 1990, military drone technology began to spill into the civilian market. In recent years, with the further maturity of technology, the civilian drone market has attracted more and more attention.

The use of drones in traditional fields such as power inspection, environmental inspection, insurance inspection, police enforcement, street scene shooting, film and television drama shooting, and logistics express delivery are not uncommon. The drones known as "air robots" have gradually entered the lives of ordinary people and applied to all aspects of production and life. From technological innovation to industrial production, the field of application of drones has become more and more unimaginable. International companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and DHL have entered the drone market. The use of drones in agriculture, forestry, geographic mapping, disaster relief, and surveillance has become more and more in-depth.

In September, Ai Media Consulting released the 2016 China UAV Industry Research Report. According to its data, the size of the Chinese consumer-grade UAV market in 2015 was about 800 million yuan, and it is expected to reach 3.2 billion yuan in 2016. In 2019, the market size of China's consumer drones will exceed 24 billion yuan, and the market capacity in the future will be considerable.

In recent years, drones have become one of the strongest export commodities in China. According to customs export data, the export volume of consumer-grade UAVs in Shenzhen Customs has increased quarter by quarter. In 2015, the export volume reached 3.09 billion yuan. It is expected that the export of consumer-grade UAVs will remain at a high level in 2016.

"Drone + Agriculture" fills the modern agricultural short board, "machine generation" becomes a trend upgrade direction

Nowadays, the drones can complete a series of daily tasks such as follow-up, aerial photography, remote control, and express delivery, especially in the agricultural field. The data shows that there are a total of 2.025 billion mu of cultivated land in China, accounting for about 7% of the total cultivated land area in the world. However, the current application of modern agricultural equipment is insufficient, and the rural youth labor force is seriously lacking. The “machine generation” as a trending industrial upgrading direction is already urgent.

To this end, the state has introduced policies to vigorously promote the transformation and upgrading of agriculture marked by large-scale production, and the "agricultural drones" that work with "machine generation" have also begun to emerge in large numbers. Among them, plant protection drones largely compensate for the limitations of traditional machinery. For example, paddy fields, hills, mountains, and high-altitude crops in the southern region cannot enter. Therefore, the plant protection drone is filling the short board of mechanization of plant protection, and the application prospect of “unmanned aerial agriculture” is very broad.

In addition to conventional pesticide spraying, drones have exceeded human productivity in identifying crop germination and crop numbers, assessing early crop health, detecting disease symptoms, finding pest symptoms, and monitoring weed infestation. Drone technology has become a more mature means of improving agricultural production efficiency.

The restrictive factors behind “UAV+Agriculture” can break through the bottleneck and usher in the maturity of the industry.

Although the process of drone technology intervening in various traditional fields is gaining momentum, it also faces restrictive factors such as technological breakthroughs, policy perfection, and security risks. The industrial upgrading brought by drones must break through these bottlenecks.

Especially for agricultural drones, the use environment of drones is more severe than that of consumer or other industries. Long-term operation in wind and sun, the requirements for aircraft performance and reliability are very high. Secondly, the consumption capacity of agricultural drone users is limited, and the requirements for drones to lower prices are higher. In addition, the application of industrial-grade UAVs has high requirements for comprehensive costs such as personnel operation training. Future development requires mature industrial chains to provide the lowest possible parts and service support.

In fact, the industrial chain of the drone industry, like ordinary high-tech products, has three main links: R&D, manufacturing and sales. With the application promotion and demand increase of professional-grade UAVs and consumer-grade UAVs, the industrial chain of the UAV industry will be further improved and will mature towards the industry.

The next step for agricultural drones is to break through the technical bottleneck. For example, extending the aircraft's battery life, using new fuels, increasing the load on the aircraft, and having a proper ratio of load to battery life is an important task. If the peasants are struggling to fill the batteries and disassemble the batteries, then the drone will have no meaning.

All in all, China's current UAV industry is facing the opportunity to cut into this industry from any angle. As long as we give full play to our own advantages and balance the two drivers of market drive and technology investment, we can be in the general trend of upgrading traditional industries. Find potential segments.

(Original title: UAV technology is involved in the momentum of various traditional fields)