“With just one button press, the robot sprays pesticides throughout the orchard.”

Lee Chan (38), who operates an apple farm of approximately 19,800㎡ (about 6,000 pyeong) in Hamyang County, South Gyeongsang Province, stated this on the morning of the 8th while injecting pesticides into an autonomous driving pesticide robot. Lee applies pesticides 15 times a year, but this year, unlike previous years, the spraying time per session has significantly reduced from an average of 8 hours to 4 hours. This is thanks to the 'autonomous driving pesticide robot' introduced in earnest earlier this year.

'Robot farmers' are increasing in domestic agriculture. Agricultural robots utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), such as autonomous driving, are mainly used for spraying, transporting, and harvesting. In particular, spraying and transport robots have gone through commercialization stages and are being utilized on farms. There is growing anticipation that AI agricultural robots will solve the issues of aging and population shortage in rural areas and increase agricultural productivity.

● Autonomous driving even on irregular paths with high-precision GPS

The 'SB-1000SSA', a type of Speed Sprayer equipped with autonomous driving functions, was developed by the domestic agricultural machinery company 'Seongbo Machinery' through technology transfer from the Rural Development Administration. Using a high-precision satellite positioning system (RTK GPS), the user sets the route, and the robot autonomously sprays pesticides on the apple trees along the path. Routes can be set at 90-degree angles or in circular shapes, making it ideal for domestic farms with many winding and irregular paths. Even if the ground environment changes and the robot deviates from the path, it can find its way back as long as it is within 1 meter of the reference point.

Lee has already entrusted 13,000㎡ (about 4,000 pyeong), two-thirds of the entire orchard, to the pesticide robot. By injecting about 1,000L of pesticides or nutrients and pressing the 'start autonomous driving' button, the robot begins to navigate the orchard in an 'S-shaped' curve along the route. Despite the ground around the apple trees being quite soft due to the rain the previous day, the robot completed the spraying of the 1,967㎡ area, the target for the day, in about 30 minutes and leisurely returned to its original position next to the water tank. The robot can prevent major accidents by immediately stopping operation if it significantly deviates from the route or encounters unexpected situations such as colliding with agricultural equipment.

Lee cited 'safety' as the greatest advantage of the autonomous driving robot. Previously, even with a pesticide mask covering the entire face, it was impossible to completely avoid direct exposure to pesticides. Lee stated, “The time directly exposed to pesticides has significantly decreased.”

◆ Robots adept at meticulous tasks like harvesting fruits and vegetables

Technology for harvesting crops using robots has also emerged. On the second basement floor of a knowledge industry center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, there is a vertical farm operated by Metafarmers (CEO Lee Kyu-hwa, 30), which provides smart agricultural services. During a visit on the 7th, the approximately 112㎡ vertical farm had strawberries planted in rows on each shelf. About 200kg of strawberries are produced monthly from 1,800 experimental plants (roots).

The AI-based multifunctional agricultural robot 'Omni Farmer', developed by Metafarmers, moves between the shelves, using information obtained from cameras and sensors to assess the ripeness of strawberries and automatically perform harvesting of well-ripened strawberries. The robot can perform pollination tasks, such as transferring pollen, using a gripper that acts as a human hand. It also conducts monitoring tasks to check the growth status of strawberries and the presence of pests and diseases. All these tasks are carried out through AI-based recognition systems and learning of work data.

Private companies are actively developing robots like these. Daedong Robotics, an AI robot specialist under the agricultural machinery company Daedong Group, aims to launch a new transport robot with voice recognition and control technology next year. Daedong Robotics CEO Yeo Jun-gu stated, “In the future, we will continue to expand the lineup of AI-based robot products needed in various agricultural fields such as spraying, weeding, and harvesting to solve labor issues and contribute to increasing productivity.”

The government aims to conduct 30% of agricultural production through smart agriculture facilities using such technology by 2027 and to export the smart farm industry worth up to USD 800 million (approximately KRW 1.1 trillion). The commercialization rate, which indicates the proportion of agricultural technology developed by the government that has been distributed to the private sector, is also steadily increasing. Last year, the Rural Development Administration signed 1,084 technology transfer contracts, with a commercialization rate of 46.6%. This is more than a 10 percentage point increase compared to 2015 (35.3%).

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