Current Status and Future Prospects of Key Technologies in Variable-Rate Spray

Yuxuan Jiao, Zhu Sun, Yongkui Jin, Longfei Cui, Xuemei Zhang, Shuai Wang, Songchao Zhang, Chun Chang, Suming Ding and Xinyu Xue ()
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Yuxuan Jiao: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Zhu Sun: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Yongkui Jin: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Longfei Cui: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Xuemei Zhang: Weichai Lovol Intelligent Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., Weifang 261200, China
Shuai Wang: Weichai Lovol Intelligent Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., Weifang 261200, China
Songchao Zhang: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Chun Chang: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Suming Ding: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Xinyu Xue: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 20, 1-31

Abstract: The traditional continuous, quantitative spraying technology ignores the severity of pests, diseases and grasses, spatial distribution and other differences, resulting in low effective utilization of pesticides, environmental pollution and other problems. Variable-rate spray technology has become an important development direction in the field of precision agriculture by dynamically sensing crop canopy morphology, pest and disease distribution, and environmental parameters, adjusting the application amount in real time, and significantly improving pesticide utilization. In this study, we systematically review the core progress of variable-rate spray technology; focus on the technical system of information detection, spray volume model, and control system; analyze the current bottlenecks; and propose an optimization path to adapt to the complex agricultural conditions. At the level of information perception, LiDAR, machine vision, and multi-source sensor fusion technology constitute the main perception architecture, and infrared and ultrasonic sensors assist target recognition in complex scenes. In the construction of the spray volume model, models based on canopy volume, leaf area density, etc., are used to realize dynamic application decision by fusing equipment operating parameters, pest and disease levels, meteorological conditions, and so on. The control system takes the solenoid valve + PID control as the core program, and improves the response speed through PWM regulation and closed-loop feedback. The current technical bottlenecks are mainly concentrated in the sensor dynamic detection accuracy, model environmental adaptability, and the reliability of the execution parts. In the future, it is necessary to further promote anti-jamming multi-source heterogeneous sensor data fusion, multi-factor adaptive spray model development, lightweight edge computing deployment, and solenoid valve structural parameter optimization and other technical research, with a view to promoting the application of variable-rate spray technology to the field on a large scale and providing a theoretical reference and technological support for the green transformation of agriculture.

Keywords: variable-rate spray; information detection; spray volume model; control system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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