The autonomous rice transplanter follows the seedbed and plants rice seedlings on its own. (image: SK Telecom Co.)
SEOUL, May 16 (Korea Bizwire) — SK Telecom Co., in cooperation with Daedong Industrial Co., South Korea’s largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery, has developed an autonomous rice transplanter for commercial use.
It is country’s first autonomous agricultural machinery to be commercialized using mobile communications technology.
The autonomous rice transplanter follows the seedbed and plants rice seedlings on its own.
The vehicle is capable of maintaining course, keeping space between seedlings, and sprinkling fertilizer to carry out variety of tasks.
Farmers, in the meantime, can engage in other tasks, reducing labor costs while maximizing yield.
The transplanter is equipped with Real Time Kinematic (RTK) technology, which uses location data it received from global positioning system (GPS) and LTE-M, an exclusive network for Internet of Things (IoT), to reduce the margin of error down to centimeters.
“Incorporating ICT into agriculture raises productivity because it becomes so much easier for everyone to handle the machinery,” said Park Jin-hyo, head of the ICT R&D Center at SK Telecom.
“This will solve a variety of social issues faced by farmers, and bring the primary industries into the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
