GUANGZHOU – Chinese agriculture technology company XAG have announced the launch of a trio of agricultural drones and related software technology, which they are convinced will make life easier for elderly small-scale farmers in rural areas with mapping, sustainable crop spraying and broadcasting on complex terrains.

Two of the drones – the XAG P40 and P80, which are an addition to XAG’s P series of agricultural drones – will being doing basically the same things, except that the P40 will be more suitable for small-scale farmers while the P80 was designed to give bigger commercial farms more efficient, flexible drone operations.

“Equipped with the SuperX4 Intelligent Control System, the new P Series drone can switch between three different payloads systems – XAG RealTerra, RevoSpray, and RevoCast,” said XAG in a statement. “This unlocks a three-in-one functional design that allows the drone to conduct autonomous mapping, precision spraying, and intelligent broadcast on complex terrains.

“Users can control the new XAG P Series with a mobile app to collect high-definition field maps, distribute seeds, spread fertilisers, and apply pesticides, which in the past can only be realised by multiple tools. Compared with traditional crop protection drones, it substantially lowers the barrier to adoption and makes previously tedious, laborious farming tasks much simpler.”

The P40 drone can support smart liquid containers with a carrying capacity of up to 25 litres, to be sprayed over 15 hectares of land in an hour. The P80 meanwhile, has a carrying capacity of 40kg and can cover 20 hectares of farmland in an hour.

According to XAG, the new drones can help small- and medium-scale farmers who experience labour challenges when many youths are shunning agriculture as a career.

The company’s third upcoming drone, the V40, will be a dual rotor machine – the first drone to have only two rotors in the life of drone technology, where other drones have at least four propellers.

The dual rotors will enable the drone to tilt easily to any side that will give it maximum leverage and angle for precise spraying.

“Through harnessing the principle of aerodynamics, XAG V40 can fully utilise its downdraft at 100 percent to make spray particles better penetrate into the leaves and plants,” said the manufacturer. “The effect of spray penetration increases by more than 2 times compared to that of the traditional crop-spraying drones. This means that it can minimise spray drift and avoid any overlaps or misses, uniformly covering a larger field area to limit crop damage and reduce grain loss.

“Since XAG V40 also supports the RealTerra, RevoSpray, and RevoCast system, users can flexibly rely on one single device to either produce HD field maps, conduct direct seeding, or control crop diseases with less resources. When it comes to crop spraying, with 20kg capacity and 10 metre spray width, V40 can complete unmanned operations on a scale of 16 hectares an hour. Such efficiency substantially surpasses other multi-rotor drones of the same capacity.”

And in support of sustainable agriculture that will reduce pollution while improving productivity, XAG will introduce precision map technology, which they say will allow for site-specific spraying on fields, which reduces pollution.  

XAG CEO Justin Gong the launch of these new drone products, along with other autonomous ground technology will compensate for the loss of labour in the fields

“In face of these challenges, we need to leverage the power of agriculture technology to reshape the agriculture and food system, bridging the rural digital divide and helping farmers yield a higher profit margin of producing crops,” Gong said.