Original title: Meet you丨Dream "blowing air conditioning to farm" He spent 7 years developing more than 60 agricultural robots
Drinking coffee in the office, blowing air conditioners, and planting land at the touch of a finger. In the past, this might have been considered an impractical fantasy, but now with the development of technology, it has become a real scene. In a test field on the outskirts of Shanghai, a group of new farmers have spent seven years developing more than 60 agricultural robots, covering everything from sowing to harvesting. The leader is called Wang Jinyue, from high-paying white-collar workers to entrepreneurial farmers, have he and his team been successful, and can robots really replace manual farm work?
Not long ago, agricultural experts and practitioners from all over the country came to Shanghai Jinshan to inspect a fully autonomous transplanting robot newly developed by Wang Jinyue's team.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: We have been from the first generation of robots to the eighth generation, constantly changing, constantly thinking, how to get it out, this machine is a collection of all your previous experience, wisdom, sweat, tears. Nervous and happy, just like your own child falling to the ground.
Under the command of the Beidou navigation system, 5G signals, and sensors such as lidar and gyroscope, the seedling planting robot can travel to designated locations in the farmland and insert seedlings into the rice field according to instructions. When it reaches the edge of the field, it can also automatically turn and continue the operation, and it can complete the planting of 5 acres of rice fields in one hour.
Yu Jianjun, vice president of Hunan International Rice Capital Agricultural Technology Research Institute: In the future, it will be enough to farm and play with remote control cars.
The affirmation of the agricultural experts gave Wang Jinyue and his team a sense of confidence. However, just when everyone thought that the test would be successfully completed, the robot suddenly failed.
By designing the fender too high, the robot silted up too much dirt when it turned in place, causing the central server to stop working. The tester can only disassemble the shell and restart the system.
Such twists and turns have long been commonplace for Wang Jinyue, and the development of agricultural robots requires a long period of precipitation, and sometimes they have to conduct hundreds of tests in order to debug an instruction.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: We are used to it, because you always have to crawl in the field, and there is a big difference between the things you design in the office and you go to the field, and you still have to constantly experiment.
Give up high salaries and hard work, and persist all the way to reap the rewards
Seven years ago, Wang Jinyue quit the management of Internet companies, returned to his rural hometown, and began to develop agricultural robots. Wang Jinyue is an authentic "second generation of farmers", after graduating from university, he worked hard all the way, with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands, which made people around him very envious, so when he decided to resign to develop agricultural robots, his parents and friends did not understand.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: Coming from a rural background, I saw that my parents had been working very hard to farm, and at that time I was thinking about whether I could get a robot to help me farm.
In order to realize her dream since childhood, Wang Jinyue gathered a group of like-minded young people and embarked on the road of entrepreneurship. In their early days, they lived in humble huts in the countryside, unable to pay their salaries for months, and supported by ideals and enthusiasm.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: Everyone is chasing, and they can still have a sleeping meeting at night, everyone will roll up the quilt, maybe a group of friends are a little smelly, really a poor and white start, and then others do not trust, every day bragging, every day talking nonsense, so at that time helpless and helpless.
The complexity of agricultural robot research and development is far beyond the imagination of these young people. For a long time, it was difficult for them to make substantial progress.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: It is still quite difficult to go from zero to one, this is the first generation of dispensing robots that we wanted to do at that time, because at that time many parts were uneven, there was almost no supply chain, just take anything around to piece together a robot.
This long row of abandoned robots witnessed the difficulty of Wang Jinyue's entrepreneurship. In order to support the team's continued research and development, he not only spent all his savings, but also sold the house.
Not only financial pressure, Wang Jinyue also has to coordinate various other matters, and he has also collapsed and cried because he cannot break through technical barriers and get test fields.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: I have always used a phrase on my mobile phone to push myself, that is, "we have to work very hard to look effortless." This is what I have always said to myself, we must put in the strength behind the scenes, and overcome some difficulties that others think are unattainable.
In May 2021, the first batch production field management robot of Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative rolled off the line, from the test field to the real farm, Wang Jinyue's team finally reaped the fruits after years of hard work.
A farm manager Lu Ye: It is not lazy, it will not have too many accidents, we think it is very good to use. Our farm of more than 500 acres generates about 20,000 yuan per month, which can save about 200,000 yuan a year.
Today, more than 60 products independently developed by Wang Jinyue's team, such as rotary tillage robots, cropping robots, seeding robots, watering robots, weeding robots, and harvesting robots, cover all links from planting to harvesting. The Beidou navigation system and 5G signal keep the robot's action error within 2 centimeters, and through image recognition and big data algorithms, weeding, turning, and harvesting are also more accurate.
The excellent performance has naturally gained market recognition, and in 2022, the sales of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative reached more than 30 million.
Wang Jinyue, chairman of Shanghai Dian Tian Agricultural Professional Cooperative: The country's technological development level, it is a big step up, robots need continuous technical iteration, but also technical upgrading. We have accumulated a variety of technologies including communications, electronic control, networks, and new energy to have a product now, which is equivalent to us standing on the shoulders of giants to grow up.
Change the hard life of the parents' generation facing the loess and let them live a life of "drinking coffee, blowing air conditioning, lying on the sofa, and letting robots farm the land". Wang Jinyue not only imagines, but also bravely turns ideas into reality. In order to realize lying on the sofa and farming, Wang Jinyue summed up the experience that he always has to crawl in the ground. Get out of the village, take root in the city, have a stable job, buy a house... Before starting a business, Wang Jinyue can be said to be already "someone else's child", and many people may also live their lives down-to-earth. However, Wang Jinyue chose to return to the countryside and put her feet on the farmland again. And facts have proved that his efforts were not in vain.
Wang Jinyue's robots are not fighting alone. On their heads, there is the blessing of infrastructure such as Beidou navigation system and 5G, and the support of scientific and technological development and supply chain efficiency... The dream of Wang Jinyue and her friends is to take root and grow on such soil.
Drinking coffee, blowing air conditioners, and lying on the sofa to farm, Wang Jinyue's childhood dream is gradually becoming a reality, and it will become a happy life for more and more farmers. (Reporters: Li Jiangnan, Li Xin, Tang Lei, Zhu Jinsong, Ma Rongda)
Source: CCTV News Client