First field wine grape pest and disease monitoring robot developed successfully in China

An assistant researcher of China’s Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, together with the Helan Mountain Wine Industry Digital and Information Innovation Team, demonstrated the first pest and disease monitoring robot developed specifically for wine grape production at the wine grape planting base of Guanlan Winery, east foot of Helan Mountain, Ningxia, recently.

A hyperspectral camera is integrated at the top of the device to detect the occurrence of pests and diseases on grape leaves, while two radar cameras are mounted at the bottom to identify and program routing to allow for autonomous movement. 

The bottom is designed with double-sided support sliding rail, which better adapts to bumpy terrain. Moving through the vineyard, this kind of robot, via wireless transmission, can send the data collected and stored by the camera to the back end. Hence, the back-end control system analyzes and processes the collected data in real-time. Once pests and diseases occur, a platform will send an alarm to growers to begin spraying of pesticides.

Aiming at the problems existing in Ningxia’s wine grape industry, such as the high cost of planting, extensive use of labor, low utilization of pesticides and the lack of intelligent production, the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information Technology of Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, together with Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, conducted collaborative research concerning production, education, research and application, having implemented an innovation-guiding program called Research and Demonstration of Key Technologies for Intelligent Planting of Wine Grapes. 

The program is scheduled for implementation in four years, with the use of modern information technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and the ″3S.″ Based upon the ″agricultural intelligent perception-diagnosis-decision-control″ process, the program carries out a series of research and development, including open-space intelligent diagnosis of wine grape pests and diseases, research and development of variable pesticide application in association with a control system, UAV precision prevention and control technique, research and development of intelligent equipment for integration of water and fertilizer and set up of a germplasm resource database.

During the 1-year implementation of the program, through many field and lab trials, research has been conducted on pest and disease spectral signature characterization, pest and disease model training, prototype design and testing, resulting in achieving the phased objectives. 

According to the demonstration, up to now, the pest and disease monitoring robot has been used to guide monitoring of pests and diseases in wine grapery, covering a total 390 mu of demonstrative wine grapery, with 25% savings of pesticide use and 10% savings of labor input.