Bayer and XAG have recently collaborated in Hangzhou, China, to host a crop dusting drone demonstration on citrus trees. Justin Gong, Co-founder and Vice President of XAG, together with Bayer's crop scientists and agricultural experts from China, Germany, India, and the U.S., attended the joint convention, in which XAG showcased its Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) fruit tree solution based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 3D flight mode.
XAG's fruit tree solution is an all-terrain autonomous drone spraying technology that resolves the global challenge of applying pesticides and fertilizers on complex terrains, such as mountains, hills and terraces. The partnership between XAG and Bayer, combining crop science research with advanced agriculture technology, aims to develop an innovative horticulture crop solution that would improve food safety and encourage healthy diet with high-quality fruits and vegetables.
To examine the efficacy of UAS fruit tree solution, XAG and Bayer selected a typical citrus orchard in Hangzhou's Jiande Town to conduct spraying on mandarin trees. The orchard covers a small area of 1.5 hectares but is located in rugged hills, where the mandarin trees are planted in uneven density and have grown to different heights. It used to take three days for three workers aged over 60s to manually spray the entire orchard for one time.
By contrast, the field experiment showed that one XAG P Series Plant Protection UAS could effectively spray half of the orchard area in only 10 minutes. While Bayer's experts had provided plant disease diagnosis and prescription, XAG utilized its newly released 3D flight modes – band, hover and spiral to conduct precision spraying operation on different types of terrains. Each of the fruit trees only received its demanded dosage, without excessive waste of water and pesticides. This was achieved through a coherent process from aerial surveying, 3D modelling, AI recognition to targeted spraying.
Prior to the spraying operation, XMission Multifunctional UAS can autonomously fly over the orchards for centimeter-level mapping and 3D terrain modelling. This is then followed by cloud computing and AI analysis, which are implemented by XAG Agriculture intelligence (XAI) to recognize field edges and each fruit tree's location and size on the 3D high-definition maps. Nearly 7 hectares of fruit trees can be accurately identified within one second, with recall ratio and precision ratio reaching as high as 98.60% and 98.04% respectively. Users can therefore capture a full image of the farmlands from different angles to ensure safer, more precise spraying during the whole flight.
Fruit tree disease management is indeed a worldwide agricultural problem. Farmers in both developed and developing countries have found it increasingly difficult to improve their cost-efficiency. XAG has been introducing drones and AI into more remote rural areas to boost productivity and improve livelihood. The UAS fruit tree solution can help farmers grow high-quality horticultural crops and other cash crops in limited lands with less water and chemicals.
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