'Drones' That Automatically Spray Pesticides Are Coming

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] A drone that autonomously determines treatment zones and obstacles to spray pesticides has been developed.

The Korea Institute of Industrial Technology and drone developer Meta Robotics Co., Ltd. jointly developed an "Intelligent Work Management System for Pest Control Drones," which allows real-time monitoring of pest control progress via a smartphone application and data sharing among farmers, pilots, and manufacturers through a cloud server.

Farmers, pest control agencies, drone pilots, and manufacturers accessing this system can immediately grasp pest control-related information regardless of time and location, according to their assigned permissions. The information accumulated in the cloud not only enhances pest control quality and reliability, but also, as big data, can be utilized for analyzing various agricultural data such as changes in crop yields resulting from pest control outcomes.

In particular, when farmers using the drone select the four corners of their farmland on a satellite map to designate a treatment zone, the drone autonomously sets the flight path and sprays pesticides at regular intervals. It also features obstacle recognition to prevent collisions and crashes with power lines and other obstacles while flying at a speed of 5 meters per second.

Dr. Seunghwan Yang of the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology said, "To respond to the influx of low-cost drones from China, we focused R&D on improving the convenience and reliability of the software system to enhance the market competitiveness of domestically produced drones," adding, "We plan to expand development to forest pest control drones that perform observation and quarantine work targeting pine wilt disease, which damages forests."

Meta Robotics plans to publicly release the cloud server of this system to the general public for the first time this month, enabling users to share pest control information.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.