The 5th International Conference of Precision Agricultural Aviation

From November 12 to 14, 2016, the 5th International Conference of Precision Agricultural Aviation was held in the conference hall of the Library of South China Agricultural University. More than 200 well-known experts and scholars from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, China and etc. attended the meeting. The conference aims to promote academic exchanges in the field of agricultural aviation, and also aims to improve the research and application level of agricultural aviation.

On the morning of November 13, all delegates attended the opening ceremony of the meeting. The opening ceremony was hosted by Professor Zhou Yang, Dean of College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University. First of all, Professor Yubin Lan, South China Agricultural University delivered an opening speech to the participants. As the founder and chairman of the International Conference on Precision Agriculture Aviation, Professor Yubin Lan expressed warm welcome to the guests and participants, and gave a detailed introduction about precision agricultural aviation technology. He pointed out that precision agricultural aviation provides effective and precision application methods, the overall goal is to provide precision agricultural aviation application solutions for agricultural aviation practitioners. Next, Professor Xiwen Luo, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Professor of South China Agricultural University, delivered a speech. Subsequently, Zhiqiang Chen, Vice President of South China Agricultural University delivered a speech. President Chen introduced the overall situation of South China Agricultural University then, he highlighted the construction of the team in agricultural aviation, pointing out that the precision agricultural aviation team which led by Professor Yubin Lan have already done a lot of work in laboratory construction, project declaration and personnel training. The team currently undertakes more than 20 projects at the provincial and ministerial level, with a total funding of 140 million RMB, including 96 million RMB of national key R&D projects just launched in 2016. Professor Yubin Lan successively promoted the establishment of the Joint Laboratory of International Agricultural Aviation Application Technology of Guangdong Science and Technolgy Department and the International Joint Laboratory of Agricultural Aviation Application Technology of Guangdong Provincial Department of Education. Zhiqiang Chen then gave thanks to domestic and foreign universities, research institutes, agricultural aviation enterprises and peer experts for their support for the development of the SCAU's agricultural aviation discipline, and wished the conference a complete success.

The final part of the opening ceremony was the awarding ceremony. President Zhiqiang Chen gave certificates to outstanding paper winners in professional group, Dr. Fengbo Yang from the Nanjing Agricultural Machinery Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Qing Tang from the National Agricultural Intelligent Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center, and Dr. Yongjun Zheng from China Agricultural University. Professor Yubin Lan presented the honorary certificate for the outstanding student of the student group, Wei Han, graduate student of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fenghua Yu, graduate student of Shenyang Agricultural University, and Shengde Chen, graduate student of South China Agricultural University. Academician Xiwen Luo gave Outstanding Contribution Award to Professor Andrew Hewitt, Director of the center for pesticides and safety at the university of Queensland, Australia, Professor Yong He, Executive Deputy Director of the Digital Agriculture and Rural Informatization Research Center of Zhejiang University, Bin Peng, CEO of Guangzhou XAG Technology Co., Ltd., and Zhiguo Wang, President of Quanfeng Aviation Plant Protection Technology Co., Ltd..

Subsequently, the conference entered the next session. In the morning meeting, Professor Steven Thomson, head of the National Program of the Food and Agriculture Research Institute of the USDA, gave a report on “New Progress in Aviation Application Systems”, which introduced the development and application of current aviation nozzles and other aviation spray assist systems. He pointed out that Professor Yubin Lan have published an article on the concept of precision agricultural aviation for the first time in the world in 2010; Professor Andrew Hewitt, Director of the Center for Pesticides Application and Safety at the University of Queensland, Australia, gave a report on the importance of spray dynamics in precision agriculture. It mainly introduced the influence of various factors on the spray droplet deposition results and the establishment of the droplet drift model; Professor Lloyd Theodore Wilson II, the director of the Texas AgriLife Research Center and Texas A&M University shared his idea about “Agricultural UAV in the United States". The report focused on the application of rice research in Texas, mainly introduced the application of drones to the detection and measurement of rice growth in Texas, and prospects for the future application of drones in rice. Dr. Chunjiang Zhao, Director of National Engineering Research Center of Information Technology in Agriculture gave a report about the "NEICITA for Precision Agriculture Research and Development", he introduced the NERCITA and the research results they made in agriculture.

In the afternoon meeting, Dr. John Clayton from Micro Air Group in UK gave e a presentation on the application of low-volume and ultra-low-capacity aeronautical rotary atomizing nozzles, mainly introduced the effects of different types and parameters of nozzles on the control of droplet control; Professor  Yubin Lan, from South China Agricultural University, gave a report on the status and prospects of precision agricultural aviation. The report mainly introduced the development and application of precision agricultural aviation in countries with developed aviation industries such as the United States and Japan, as well as the development of precision agriculture aviation, in his report the future development direction of precision agriculture aviation was prospected; Professor I Made Anom S. Wijaya, from Udayana University, gave a report on the application of drones in rice production, mainly introduced drones application in Malaysia and other places on rice field, Dr. Sarennah Longworth-Cook, Malvern Instruments, UK, gave a report on “Drop size measurement in pesticide spraying”, which mainly detailed the principle, method and precautions of droplet size testing technology. Professor Xiongkui He, from China Agricultural University, gave a report on "Application of Asian drone application technology" The report mainly introduced the development of agricultural drones in Japan, South Korea and China, and described the team's recent experiments on the application of agricultural drones; Professor Nikos Sigrimis, from the University of Athens, Greece, gave a report on " Evolution of intelligent precision agriculture and UAV technology”; Xinyu Xue,  researcher at the Nanjing Agricultural Machinery Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, gave a report on “Pesticides  Application Evaluation”, which mainly introduced agricultural applications. Application of drones and ground vegetation machinery to rice application control, and comparison of pesticides application effects; Dr. William Xu, from AG-NAV, Canada, gave a report on "Navigation technology and flow control system in precision agricultural aviation" The report mainly described the detail of the application of the company's AG-NAV system for manned aircraft.

On the morning of November 14, Professor Baijing Qiu, from Jiangsu University, Professor Deying Ma, from Xinjiang Agricultural University, Professor Wenjiang Huang, deputy director of the Digital Earth Laboratory of the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenghui Yang, China Agricultural University, Yali Zhang, South China Agricultural University, Dr. Xiaojing Yan, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Yuxing Han, South China Agricultural University, Lili Wu, South China Agricultural University, Dr. Hang Zhu, Jilin University, and Fenghua Yu, Shenyang Agricultural University, gave their report respectively, the topic include “Agricultural UAVs” "Precision operation technology and development", "Impact of different application methods of plant protection drones on cotton defoliation", "National scale crop pest and disease prediction and prediction system", "Atomization drop distribution detection method research", "South China Agricultural University precision agriculture Aviation Research and Development", "Agricultural Aviation Low-altitude Low-volume Spray Technology Research", "Application of Information Collection, Transmission and Expression in Agricultural Aviation in Complex Agricultural Scenes", "Agricultural Aviation Big Data Application Platform Construction and Practice Exploration", " Based on LabVIEW Detection methods for small multi-rotor UAV "," UAV Hyperspectral and radiative transfer mode (RTM) for phenotype rice field inversion ".

On the afternoon of November 14, there was a special report on the enterprise and a seminar on the development of precision agriculture aviation. It was hosted by Professor Yubin Lan and Lin Yang, from Secretary General of the Agricultural Aviation Branch of China Agricultural Mechanization Association. First of all, Professor Yubin Lan pointed out that due to the low cost and high efficiency of plant protection drones and the efforts of universities, research institutes and enterprises present, the Chinese drone plant protection business is booming, but we should recognized that the application, research, development, marketing and cultivation of agricultural UAV is still in the initial stage in China, in order to promote the drone plant protection in a broad scope and make it more widely and further recognized by users. We still have a lot of work to do. Subsequently, in order to increase people's understanding of plant protection drone companies and promote the development of enterprises, Chairman Zhiguo Wang, Quanfeng Aviation Plant Protection Technology Co., Ltd., Bin Peng,  Guangzhou XAG Technology Co., Ltd., Chairman Yuedong Mao, Shenzhen Gaoke New Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., Chairman Bin Liang, Nanjing Shansi Biotechnology Co., Ltd. , Assistant Director Baohong Yu, Beijing Weijia Hangtong Technology Co., Ltd., General Manager Dufeng Zhang, Beijing Anzhou Technology Co., Ltd., Xiaotao Liu, Shenzhen SuperNode Network Technology, gave their report respectively, topics included "Agricultural UAV application technology and development", "Plant protection drone precision pesticide application technology and its large-scale application",  "Electric unmanned helicopter in hybrid rice seed production"., "Innovation and Development of Special Formulations for Aviation Plant Protection", "UAV Control Technology in the Case of Magnetic Anomaly Detection and Magnetic Abnormality", "Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging Remote Sensing Technology and Application", "Vision-Based UAV Special report on real-time positioning and obstacle avoidance methods”.

After the report, the conference entered the development discussion session. Participants put forward their own opinions and views actively on the current cutting-edge technology of agricultural UAV and the problems in the development of agricultural aviation, Professor Yubin Lan shared his idea about the standard for plant protection drones, Guangsheng Zhang, CCTV agricultural program reporter, executive secretary of the Organizing Committee of China UAV and Robot Application Competition, shared his idea about the application of agricultural drones in hills and other areas. Associate Professor Jizhong Deng of South China Agricultural University discussed the subsidy policy for agricultural drone purchases.

During the conference, the participating experts discussed and exchanged topics such as remote sensing and agricultural information collection and analysis, agricultural aviation precision pesticide application technology, and agricultural aviation application evaluation of agricultural aviation big data. Precision agricultural aviation provides new and improved precision aerospace applications for safe, efficient and sustainable crop production, with the overall goal: providing precision aerospace application solutions for agribusiness practitioners. It is reported that the International Conference on Precision Agricultural Aviation has been held since 2008. It has been held once every two years and has been successfully held for four times. The first three sessions were held in the Agricultural Aviation Technology Research Center of the USDA. In November 2014, the 4th International Conference on Precision Agricultural Aviation was held at South China Agricultural University. During the conference, the “International Precision Agricultural Aviation Application Technology Center” was established, which provided a platform for international exchange and cooperation in agricultural aviation. With the convening of this conference, participants clearly understood the development status and future development direction of precision agricultural aviation, and clearly defined the current direction of research units and we should make our own contribution on the development of agricultural aviation industry.  

Weike Yao, president of China International Association for Science and Technology Cooperation, Shiqing Ma, vice president of China Agricultural Mechanization Association, Tiezhu Zhang, president of Shandong University of Technology, Shaoming Luo, president of Zhongkai Agricultural Engineering College, Liping Chen, associate director of National Agricultural Information Technology Research Center, Jincai Yang, President of Shenzhen UAV industry association, attended the meeting.