Rapid population growth, increased pressure on food supplies, declining agricultural labor force, rising demand for agricultural robots, and growing unmanned farm concepts. Whether it is building "smart agriculture" or boosting farm drone, agricultural robots are well-deserved protagonists.
Centuries ago, the industrial revolution and technological innovations greatly increased our use of the earth's resources. At that time, the earth's resources seemed inexhaustible. But now the world is about to face a major crisis - the Earth's population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and in the future the output of food will need to at least double the current output of food in order to meet the sharply increased demand for food. However, unfavorable factors such as global warming and urbanization are restricting the growth of crops and grain output is rather difficult.
In the past few years, artificial intelligence has changed the way most companies and organizations work. These artificial intelligence algorithms are also beginning to penetrate the agricultural sector. Nowadays, the development of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and internet of things is changing the era. With the agricultural production mode moving forward from mechanization to digitization, the precision agricultural technology has quietly changed the traditional mode of agricultural production. The high-end intellectualization stage has come.
Currently, agricultural robots have been able to complete sowing, planting, tillage, picking, harvesting, weeding, sorting and packaging work, mainly used in unmanned tractors, unmanned aerial vehicles, material management, seeding and forest management, soil management, grazing Industry management and animal management.
According to the analysis of the insiders, the demand for agricultural robots has increased due to many factors, such as rapid population growth, increasing pressure on food supply, declining agricultural labor force, changes in farmland and climate, as well as competitive pressures from indoor agricultural growth.
Agricultural robots are not only more diversified and intelligent, but also promote the realization of emerging concepts such as "unmanned farm". The future market prospect is very broad. According to the forecast of related agencies, the output of agricultural robots in 2024 will grow from 32,000 in 2016 to as many as 590,000. In addition, 2024 agricultural robot income is expected to reach 74 billion US dollars.
Based on the vast future market of agricultural robots, many countries all over the world have added codes. At present, Japan is leading the world in the research and development of agricultural robots. In addition to tractors, Japan will also develop robotic versions of combine harvesters and rice transplanters.
With the promotion of agricultural robot applications, the concept of "unmanned farm" is gradually emerging. Currently, a team of agricultural engineers from Harper Adams University in the UK created the world's first unmanned farm: the entire process from turning, sowing, irrigation and harvesting to mechanical harvesting without anyone entering the farm , And the drone to monitor crop growth. The team believes that this unmanned farm model represents the future of agriculture.
Indeed, in a way, total automation saved a lot of labor costs for agriculture and brought other direct profits as well. It may be more efficient to buy a small fleet of agricultural tractors equipped with a driver's seat than to deploy a large farm laborer. I believe this may be the future trend.
At the same time it also means that agricultural work vehicles must have higher precision, greater flexibility, lower production costs and a more affordable gas price. Excluding the need for daylighting of crops, one can easily use remote monitoring to run small farms around the clock.
But to be honest, whether it is building "smart agriculture" or boosting farm drone, agricultural robots are well-deserved protagonists. Data predict that by 2021, the global agricultural robot sales will exceed 14 million units, sales will exceed 2 billion US dollars. Seen in this light, the field of agricultural robot promising, the market is rapidly developing, or will open another new blue ocean in agriculture.
