Chasing Innovation Dreams in The Field--Anhui Normal University's College Student Research Team Develops Laser Weeder To Help Agricultural Production

From October 29 to November 2, in Xi'an Jiaotong University, the 14th "Challenge Cup" Qin Chuangyuan China College Student Entrepreneurship Plan Competition, Anhui Normal University (hereinafter referred to as "An Normal University"), College of Computer Science and Information... The scientific research project of the college student research team "Grass Shadow Without a Trace", "Grass Shadow Without a Trace--New Single-tailed Scorpion Laser Weeder", won the Silver Prize. Previously, the project has won the gold medal of the 11th "Challenge Cup - Huaan Securities" Anhui University Students' Entrepreneurship Plan Competition and the silver medal of Anhui University Students' Innovation Competition (2024).
Weeds are a major hazard in agricultural production. Although the level of agricultural modernization in China has been greatly improved, the problem of weeds still plagues agricultural production. Laser weed control technology has the advantages of reducing agricultural labor intensity, reducing the use of herbicides, etc., the market prospect is broader. "Grass shadow without a trace" university student research team lasted five years, successfully pushed the small laser weeder from the laboratory to the field, to achieve efficient weed control.
Yao Yancheng is a graduate student of computer science and technology at Anshi University, class of 2021.In May 2019, when he was in his second year of undergraduate study of Internet of Things at Anshi University, he and his classmates set up the "Grass Shadow Without a Trace" scientific research team, which is dedicated to the thematic study of laser weeding technology.
"We integrate IoT, artificial intelligence and robotics to develop small laser weeding robots. This not only makes full use of the students' professional knowledge, but also exercises their practical ability and innovative thinking." Zhao Chuanxin, the team's instructor, said. In order to build an interdisciplinary research platform, Zhao Chuanxin invited experts and scholars from the fields of agricultural science, automation technology, and robotics engineering to provide professional guidance to the team members.
In July 2022, the team successfully developed the first generation of laser weeder and conducted field research in Anhui, Jiangxi and Jiangsu. During the research process, the team members found that the existing laser weeding technology has problems such as a single angle of the laser head, large size, and the inability to full-cycle weeding.
To this end, the team successfully produced a highly efficient, flexible and low-cost single-tailed scorpion laser weeder in March 2023 by expanding the weed crop training set, improving the weeding arm path planning technology based on the ant colony algorithm, constructing the auxiliary wheel obstacle-crossing model, and developing the binocular vision-enhanced recognition and localization technology with fused silhouette detection. The team positioned it as a second-generation laser weeder primer.
In order to verify the adaptability of the second-generation laser weeder first-generation product in real-world environments, the team decided to conduct its first field test at a tea base in Yuexi, Anhui Province. The test found that the weeding machine can only operate stably in good weather conditions, and once it encounters windy weather, the machine will have positioning errors.
Team member Liu Yuhang said, "In response to this problem, we made algorithmic improvements in subsequent research and development, added a feedback mechanism, and performed image data enhancement processing to determine more important feature weights and improve the accuracy of model recognition."
In September 2023, the improved machine successfully solved the positioning error problem in subsequent trials, and the team successfully sold the first unit. Currently, the laser weeder has been in stable operation for more than 1,000 hours and has successfully moved from the lab to the field.
Yan Xingxing, captain of the "grass shadow without a trace" college research team and a 2022 Internet of Things engineering major student at Anshi University, said, "In five years, we have visited eight agricultural enterprises, walked into 32 farmers' homes, carried out tens of thousands of model training, obtained 11 patents and software copyrights, and published seven papers. , and published 7 papers."
How has the second-generation laser weeder brought changes to agricultural production? Team members conducted a comparison test at Jiangshan Plantation in Gao Tai Township, Funan County, Anhui Province. The results showed that compared with traditional herbicides, the nutrient content of the crop was boosted by nearly 8% with the laser weeder, while the rate of weeding mishaps was reduced, and the yield of 10 acres of Shanghai green increased by 10%. At present, the "grass shadow without a trace" team and seven enterprises in Anhui Province signed a weed control service contract and product procurement contracts, totaling more than 1 million yuan. In addition, the team has basically realized the successful transformation and mass production of scientific research results by cooperating with processing factories.
"In the future, I hope that the team members will continue to carry forward the spirit of innovation and apply what they have learned to practical work." Zhao Chuanxin said.