Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2022-07-13 Origin: 35 Dou
35 Dou learned that recently, LJ Tech has received millions of yuan from angel + round of financing. This round of financing, invested exclusively by Panda Capital, has been LJ Tech’s second round of financing since its establishment of more than 6 months. The round of funds will be used for the capacity expansion and marketing for orchard multi-functional robot, as well as the research and development of "field patrol robot".
Wu Yuhan, investor of Panda Capital, said that agricultural machinery has many subdivisions in various application scenarios, and agricultural robot is a good development direction. For agricultural machinery enterprises, to find a good application scenario is of critical importance, for different user groups will have different preferences for product selection. Through front-line researches, Panda Capital sees that LJ Tech products have broad market prospects. At the same time, the core team of LJ Tech has a deep understanding of the application practice of integrating agricultural scenes and technology, and has a strong sales team in the field of smart agriculture. Panda Capital is willing to support and accompany LJ Tech to better serve agricultural production and make a contribution to China’s agricultural machine intelligence and agricultural modernization.
Jiangsu Lanjiang Intelligent Technology Co., LTD (hereinafter referred to as "LJ Tech”), located in Nanjing and founded in 2021, is an agricultural high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development, manufacturing and sales of agricultural robots in large fields. The company deeply integrates information technology, intelligent equipment and agronomy, providing customers with integrated solutions of software and hardware.
"Three-in-one" solution of orchard multi-functional robot
Photo: LJ Tech Founder Zhang Hongbo
The founder Zhang Hongbo, graduated from Southeast University, has a background of 16 years of IT technology solutions before entering the field of smart equipment, and has 6 years of front-line management experience in the field of agricultural science and technology, serving as the general manager of Jiangsu Beidou and a senior executive of Huida Technology. Zhang Hongbo found that among the four links of "till-sow-manage-harvest" in the main crop planting process, the mechanization rate of tillage, sowing and harvest was relatively high, while the mechanization rate of "management" was extremely low, which was a link with long duration, complicated situations and high requirements on agricultural technology.
So, how to improve the field management level? -- Mainly people and technology. Zhang Hongbo holds that we cannot improve the quality of farmers in a short period of time because of the aging of agricultural population and rural exodus. For enterprises, the only way is to start with the technology and solution side: on the one hand, replacing human labor with robots to realize the minimization of farm labor; on the other hand, trying to eliminate the most uncontrollable factor in the planting process -- human, and gradually realizing the function of decision-making and analysis through data accumulation and modeling.
Zhang Hongbo believes this is an untapped market of hundreds of billions of dollars. In the next few years, a large number of professional solution providers will emerge in China.
Photo: LJ Tech self-developed Multi-functional orchard robot
The main products of LJ Tech are orchard multi-functional robot and field patrol robot. Orchard multi-functional robot has three functions: spraying, weeding and transportation. LJ Tech is also one of the earliest enterprises to realize this concept in China. Specifically, in terms of the spraying function, the online devices can be checked in real time through the mobile APP, low pesticide liquid level alarm can be set, and corresponding solutions can be provided according to the current working conditions. At the same time, historical operation data can be recorded to realize the traceable management of operation. Weeding function can be realized after equipping the robot with weeding machine and planning the driving path. In transport link, orchard multi-functional robot carries the fruit and connects with manual picking seamlessly, greatly improving the transport efficiency.
Orchard multi-functional robot has natural advantages over drones on spraying, most of the time pests hide on the back of the leaf, spraying from the bottom up is easier to penetrate the insect attack. The spraying system developed by LJ Tech and Nanjing Agricultural University possesses strong penetrating power and even spraying,can save pesticides while ensuring spraying effect.
In order to give full play to the utility of this multi-functional robot, LJ Tech integrates multiple functions into this Orchard multi-functional robot through modular design, which is the first of its kind in China. Three-in-one solution resolves the dirty work, hard work and dangerous work in orchard. One machine can truly and greatly reduce the labor intensity in orchard planting management and pesticide damage to human body, and ensure the spraying efficiency and effect at the same time.
Supporting LJ Tech Orchard robot equipment is its self-developed smart orchard platform, which Zhang Hongbo hopes will be a bridge between traditional agriculture and technology agriculture. In Zhang’s opinion, in the process of dealing with land for generations, Chinese farmers have formed their own set of experience system, which is not exclusive with modern technology agriculture, but the knowledge base that technology agriculture needs to rely on. Therefore, the goal of this smart agriculture platform of LJ Tech is to store the experience passed down by generations of Chinese farmers. Taking apples as an example, the efficiency and effect of orchard management can be improved by integrating these information into one platform: what kind of soil is suitable for what kind of apples, how to grow seedlings, how to manage them, and how to arrange farming under different environmental conditions.
Based on field patrol robot, build the “bridge”
Nowadays, unmanned farms are constantly mentioned. Zhang Hongbo believes that unmanned farms should not be confined to the concept of "unmanned", but should be less humanized and more standardized, and be implemented to specific scenes to solve the pain points in the process of planting management.
The terminal that runs the idea in fields is field patrol robot. While carrying out plant protection, weeding and other operations, it can collect data on diseases, insect pests, soil, meteorology, plots and so on. Diseases and insect pests are important factors affecting the quality assurance of agricultural products, and prevention is greater than post-treatment.
The idea of LJ Tech is, to constantly collect and summarize the environmental data of each stage through information technology, and constantly practice and revise them in the combination with field crop management agronomy, to eventually form a set of standardized planting model suitable for a certain variety in the region that can be used to popularize and reproduce, guide farmers in planting management, stabilize yield and increase production. Zhang told us, data accumulation is a very long process that needs at least 3-5 years before it can really play its value and in turn guide agriculture, but that’s why LJ Tech determines to do it as soon as possible. On the way to realize the transformation from traditional agriculture to technology agriculture, LJ Tech hopes to build this “bridge”.
Regarding the industry barriers, Zhang said that the "barriers" we are talking about in most cases refers to technical barrier on the one hand, but on the other, more of it is a barrier of thinking. How do enterprises break through the barrier of thinking?
The first is to find the pain points in agriculture, not the difficulties, because pain points are the direct obstacles to the next stage of agriculture.
Second, a compound talent system that understands agriculture is a foundation. The R&D team of LJ Tech has gathered talents from 5 different fields, including AI, neural network, Beidou navigation, electric control, mechanical manufacturing, etc. The core team members have 5 to 10 years of working experience in agricultural technology, and have a deep understanding of the application practice of integrating agricultural scene and technology. This allows for rapid mobilization and integration of technologies from different fields when solving problems in specific scenarios.
The third is to compete against others on solutions, not on products. China's digital agriculture has gone through a round of changes, simply making products is no longer as attractive as before, proposing solutions to specific pain points will become a new foothold for enterprises.
In the next two years, LJ Tech will focus on the mass production and promotion of orchard multifunctional robot, as well as the research and development, finalization and mass production of field patrol robot. In addition, LJ Tech is exploring overseas application scenarios of agricultural robots.