Daedong said on Jan. 13 that its autonomous transport robot and combine harvester have received a new-technology agricultural machinery certification from the Rural Development Administration. It said this is the first in the industry. The certification recognises its autonomous driving and precision automatic control technology. Daedong received new-technology certification for a rice transplanter in 2021.

The autonomous transport robot was developed to reduce the burden of fruit transport work for orchard farms. It supports 3 driving modes: wired, remote control and autonomous driving. Farmers can focus only on harvesting and loading and unloading work, while reducing repetitive labour and improving work efficiency.

The robot is based on four-wheel drive and comes with a load box of up to 300 kg, as well as lift and dump functions. It is equipped with a 3D camera, LiDAR and dual RTK (Real Time Kinematic) antennas. It recognises its surroundings and autonomously drives to up to 11 designated stopping points set through a dedicated app. The robot received South Korea's first certification as an autonomous agricultural powered carrier from the Korea Agriculture Technology Promotion Agency.

The autonomous combine harvester, the DH-6135-A model, has a three-stage autonomous operation function. After carrying out a harvesting run once along the edge of farmland, it automatically sets a route. It also supports a discharge-driving function that autonomously moves to a designated location when the grain tank is full. When harvesting a paddy field of 10,000 pyeong over 8 to 9 hours a day, the time a farmer must drive directly is about 2 hours.

It automatically and precisely controls functions such as the cutting unit's ground response, feeding depth and levelling control depending on crop conditions and ground status. Real-time yield can be checked through the monitor inside the combine. It also implemented, for the first time in South Korea, a technology that lets users check yields by plot sections (5x5m) within a field through a mobile app.

Byungwoo Gam, head of Daedong's development division, said, "Agricultural sites are in a situation where it is no longer easy to rely only on human labour due to ageing and labour shortages, and advanced agricultural machinery will be a necessity, not a choice." He said, "With this certification, which objectively verified that Daedong's technology has reached a level that can be used immediately in actual agricultural sites, we will focus more on technology development and field application that can accelerate the AI transition across agriculture."