Unmanned Farms in Smart Agriculture—2nd Edition

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Precision and Digital Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2025 | Viewed by 420

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Interests: onboard sensor design; sensor fusion; signal/image processing; agriculture; controlling system; navigation and position/orientation; autonomous take-off and landing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Interests: intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment; unmanned farm; agricultural robots; agricultural artificial intelligence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial change is emerging—information technology, biotechnology, new materials technology and new energy technology have been widely integrated into the field of agriculture, giving rise to a large number of strategic new industries, advanced manufacturing of agricultural equipment, te agricultural Internet of Things, agricultural data and agricultural robotics, and other technologies gradually applied to various areas of agricultural production. Smart agriculture has also shown a strong momentum of development and unmanned farms have become an important way to achieve smart development in agriculture. Unmanned farms are supported by biotechnology, intelligent farm machinery, and information technology. Biotechnology provides a variety of cultivation patterns adapted to mechanized operations for unmanned farms, intelligent farm machinery provides equipment support for automated operations of unmanned farms, and information technology provides support for precise positioning, data transmission, and the intelligent management of unmanned farms for operation by farm machinery.

Previously, we successfully published a Special Issue entitled “Unmanned Farms in Smart Agriculture”, and we now propose a second edition covering a broader range of applications.

In this Special Issue, we aim to exchange knowledge on any aspect related to unmanned farms in smart agriculture, thus promoting the rapid development of agricultural mechanization and intelligence, and facilitating the construction of unmanned farms in a period of rapid development.

Prof. Dr. Zhiyan Zhou
Prof. Dr. Lian Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • smart agriculture
  • unmanned farms
  • intelligent farm machinery
  • automatic navigation
  • precision operation
  • unmanned farm
  • information technology
  • agricultural internet of things
  • smart management

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 3588 KiB  
Article
Design and Experimental Operation of a Swing-Arm Orchard Sprayer
by Zhongyi Yu, Mingtian Geng, Keyao Zhao, Xiangsen Meng, Hongtu Zhang and Xiongkui He
Agronomy 2025, 15(7), 1706; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15071706 - 15 Jul 2025
Viewed by 256
Abstract
In recent years, the traditional orchard sprayer has had problems, such as waste of liquid agrochemicals, low target coverage, high manual dependence, and environmental pollution. In this study, an automatic swing-arm sprayer for orchards was developed based on the standardized pear orchard in [...] Read more.
In recent years, the traditional orchard sprayer has had problems, such as waste of liquid agrochemicals, low target coverage, high manual dependence, and environmental pollution. In this study, an automatic swing-arm sprayer for orchards was developed based on the standardized pear orchard in Pinggu, Beijing. Firstly, the structural principles of a crawler-type traveling system and swing-arm sprayer were simulated using finite element software design. The combination of a diffuse reflection photoelectric sensor and Arduino single-chip microcomputer was used to realize real-time detection and dynamic spray control in the pear canopy, and the sensor delay compensation algorithm was used to optimize target recognition accuracy and improve the utilization rate of liquid agrochemicals. Through the integration of innovative structural design and intelligent control technology, a vertical droplet distribution test was carried out, and the optimal working distance of the spray was determined to be 1 m; the nozzle angle for the upper layer was 45°, that for the lower layer was 15°, and the optimal speed of the swing-arm motor was 75 r/min. Finally, a particle size test and field test of the orchard sprayer were completed, and it was concluded that the swing-arm mode increased the pear tree canopy droplet coverage by 74%, the overall droplet density by 21.4%, and the deposition amount by 23% compared with the non-swing-arm mode, which verified the practicability and reliability of the swing-arm spray and achieved the goal of on-demand pesticide application in pear orchards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Farms in Smart Agriculture—2nd Edition)
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