• ETRI Journal
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• 제45권3호
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• pp.479-491
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• 2023

The automation of agricultural machines is an irreversible trend considering the demand for improved productivity and lack of labor in handling agricultural tasks. Unstructured working environments and weather often inhibit a seemingly simple task from being fully autonomously performed. In this context, we propose a remote driving system (RDS) to aid agricultural machines designed to operate autonomously. Particularly, we modify a commercial speed sprayer for orchard environments into a robotic speed sprayer to evaluate the proposed RDS's usability and test three sensor configurations in terms of human performance. Furthermore, we propose a confidence error ellipsebased task performance measure to evaluate human performance. In addition, we present field experimental results describing how the sensor configurations affect human performance. We find that a combination of a semiautonomous line tracking device and a wide-angle camera is the most effective for spraying. Finally, we discuss how to improve the proposed RDS in terms of usability and obtain a more accurate measure of human performance.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• 제21권4호
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• pp.474-481
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• 1996

Farm mechanization has been rapidly progressed in rice farming since the 1980's, in Korea. The mechanization has been achieved up to 95-97% in the year of 1995, except irrigation and drying process. However, rice production cost remains much more expensive than the cost of other rice farming countries. Since labor cost shares a major portion of the production costs, it is essential to save labor cost with automation and more sophisticated mechanization. However, it requires great capital investment which causes farm management worse. Therefore, the computer program was developed which can select machines to minimize the management and maintenance cost by analyzing available working days in different areas, machinery to purchase, farming size, total farming size in a village, number of machines and custom fee.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.491-498
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• 1998

Transplanting process during the tissue culture of potato seedlings is costly, since the cost of highly skilled labor working in the sanitary environment takes up about 60-70% of the production cost. The objective of this study was to develop a soft gripper of a transplanting robot system for the labor-saving tissue culture. The prototype of the soft gripper was consisted of power-transmitting part finger and plant contacts. The power transmitting part transformed the rotating motion of a step motor to the reciprocating motion of the finger. Plant stems used in the test were potato seedlings cultured for six weeks. The dimensional characteristics of cultured seedlings, the compressive strengths of the stems, the extractive force from the culture medium and the gripping force of the finger were measured. A proper gripping force was found to be 0.343N at the extractive force of 0.41N when the plant contacts were made of silicon. Sixteen plants out of 70 trials were tangled with others, resulting in the success rate of 77.1%.

• 드라이브 ㆍ 컨트롤
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• 제20권4호
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• pp.27-34
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• 2023

Weeding in orchards is closely associated with productivity and quality. The customary weeding process is both labor-intensive and time-consuming. To solve the problems, there is need for automation of agricultural robots and machines in the agricultural field. On the other hand, orchards have complicated working areas due to narrow spaces between trees and amorphous terrain. Therefore, it is necessary to develop customized robot technology for unmanned weeding work within the department. This study developed a path generation and path control method for unmanned weeding according to the orchard environment. For this, the width of the weeding span, the number of operations, and the width of the weeding robot were used as input parameters for the orchard environment parameters. To generate a weeding path, a weeding robot was operated remotely to obtain GNSS-based location data along the superheated center line, and a driving performance test was performed based on the generated path. From the results of orchard field tests, the RMSE in weeding period sections was measured at 0.029 m, with a maximum error of 0.15 m. In the steering period within row and steering to the next row sections, the RMSE was 0.124 m, and 0.047 m, respectively.

• 농업과학연구
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.227-242
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• 2012

Accurate estimation of milk production cost is very important for dairy farmers in establishing strategies for business management (e.g. planning a program for milk production, deciding the size of business and investment, determining the milk price for sale). Since the estimated cost of milk production is used as an important index to determine the basal price of milk in Korea, there has been much interest and debate on the method used to estimate milk production cost among the stakeholder. This study was thus carried out to identify problems in the current methodology for estimating cost of milk production, and to find a better way to improve it. We propose several alternatives and better ways to improve the current method for estimating cost of milk production. Estimation of the income and cost per head should be based on the number of cattle converted to grown cows. Cost estimation per liter of milk should be made for both whole milk and 3.4% milk fat corrected milk. The value of purchased cows and raised replacement heifers should be the same as their market value. The productive life span of cows should be less 4 years, and the terminal or salvage value of cows needs to be 30 to 40% less than her initial value. When calculating depreciation of cows over the productive life span, however, the salvage value should be 0 or 1 Korean won. On calculating labor costs, the farm labor wage corresponding to the average wage of nonfarm industrial workers should be assumed. Beside of these, better estimation procedures for other items are also given. The proposed methods from this study should improve the accuracy of estimation of milk production cost and help to achieve consensus among the stakeholder.

• 한국전문물리치료학회지
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.76-91
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• 2017

Background: Agricultural work is physically demanding and is associated with a high frequency of musculoskeletal disorders. It is challenging to comprehensively understand the present status of work-related diseases and injuries among farmers in underdeveloped countries. Objects: This study aimed to elucidate the current status of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in local farmers in Tigray, Ethiopia, and identify the agricultural factors associated work-related musculoskeletal pain (AFWMP) and healthy living and healthy behavior factors associated work-related musculoskeletal pain (HFWMP). Methods: The Institute for Poverty Alleviation and International Development at Yonsei University conducted a survey of 126 households in Tigray, Ethiopia in 2014. A total of 116 individuals (73 men, 43 women) representing each household answered the questionnaires. Results: 1) Work-related musculoskeletal pain (WMSP) most commonly occurred when performing heavy lifting and most frequently occurred in the lower back. 2) Age, self-perceived labor intensity, and months of farming work were significantly higher in the pain group than those in the non-pain group. 3) Overall work-related musculoskeletal pain intensity (WPI) showed positive and negative correlations with years of farming experience and self-perceived health status, respectively. 4) In binary logistic regression, the occurrence of WMSP showed significant associations with self-perceived labor intensity. 5) On multiple linear regression analysis, age, months of farming work, and self-perceived health status had a significant impact on overall WPI. Conclusion: The WMSP of farmers in Tigray, Ethiopia was related to the characteristics of farm working and health status. Furthermore, HFWMP and AFWMP were the chief factors affecting the occurrence of WMSP in farmers in Tigray. Therefore, both HFWMP and AFWMP should be considered for clinical health assessments of farmers with WMSP in underdeveloped African countries.

• 한국농공학회논문집
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• 제64권2호
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• pp.85-96
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• 2022

The study is aimed to investigate the features and socio-economic background of farmland consolidation project with medium-sized paddy plot at irrigation associations during the Japanese colonial period in Korea. Most of farmland consolidation works in the 1940s was composed of independent irrigation and drainage ditches along the short side of field plot. However, the number of farm roads at farmland consolidation zone was much smaller than number of irrigation ditches to decrease reduction in farmland area. The standard field plot was medium-sized (about 20-40 ares) in Korea but small-sized (about 10 ares) in Japan in this period. As the result of farmland consolidation works, the unit water requirement was increased to 0.0035 m³/s/ha, and the unit area drainage discharge was over 2.0 m³/s/km² in many cases. The farmland consolidation with medium-sized plot have been spread under the colonial landlord system, where major landlords occupied a large share of farmland and managed corporate farming to gain more benefit. The reasons for spread of farmland consolidation with medium-sized plot may be as follows: high net profit ratio, an increase in land price, and labor savings in rice farming. The farmland consolidation with medium-sized plot in the colonial period showed intermediate features between the farm consolidation with small-sized plot for an increase in land productivity in Japan and the farm consolidation with medium-sized plot for an increase in labor productivity after the 1960s.

• 인간식물환경학회지
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• 제23권1호
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

The purpose of this research is to strengthen rural community empowerment by creating a tourism farm as a plan to reduce relative poverty and to improve the quality of life by creating jobs and increasing the income of local residents in underdeveloped countries. To do so, literature review, stakeholder interviews, on-site investigations, focus-group interviews, a project meeting for residents and a questionnaire survey were performed and analyzed and the results were as follows. First, Uganda has the potential to increase agricultural production based on its warm climate, fertile land and abundant natural resources. The quality of life of local residents is expected to be improved by realizing high-added values through the convergence of the conventional existing agricultural industry and other industries if the agricultural technology is properly transferred based on abundant labor force and low labor expenses. Opportunities for the success of the project can be spread to other rural villages across the country. Second, since local residents are now cultivating sugar cane, cassava, matoke, banana, coffee and so on as a farm owner, tourism agriculture with high-added values can be promoted by vitalizing communities based on farming technology to be transferred and a cooperative farm. It is also necessary to implement a rural community empowerment project to do so. Third, the university that is the cooperative partner of the project is positively considering to train experts by establishing a community development department, and, if necessary, a technical training center to educate the general public, which is expected to create synergic effects through the convergence of education, agriculture and tourism.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.116-133
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• 2021

Purpose - Intra-industry trade of agricultural products can eliminate the disadvantage of Korea's traditional agriculture and improve its lack of comparative advantage. The main purpose of this paper is to measure the level and index of intra-industry trade of Korean agricultural products and to explore the spatial dependence and spillover effect associated with this type of trade. The main factors influencing intra-agricultural trade are analyzed from two perspectives: the population and the classification of agricultural products. Design/methodology - First, the level of intra-industry trade of Korean agricultural products is measured. Second, to obtain a more accurate estimate of the influence of various factors, and based on two types of weight matrices, a spatial econometric model is constructed from two aspects: population and classification of agricultural products. The status and the factors influencing intra-industry trade are also studied. Findings - It is concluded that there is a positive spatial correlation between Korea's intra-industry trade in agricultural products and that of its trading partners. The spatial spillover effect of this type of trade is verified by using the spatial autoregressive model (SAR). Labor-intensive agricultural products are found to have a positive spillover effect on intra-industry trade, while land-intensive products do not have a significant effect. Originality/value - In this paper, the two types of agricultural products are meticulously distinguished, and the spatial effect of the intra-industry trade of agricultural products as well as the influence of various factors are analyzed. In addition, the accuracy of the estimation of the coefficients of the factors by using the spatial econometric model is higher than that of the ordinary panel data model.

• 한국농업기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국농업기계학회 2000년도 THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY ENGINEERING. V.III
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• pp.827-834
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• 2000

A granular herbicide applicator attached to conventional ride-on rice transplanter with 6 rows was developed in order to carry out both transplanting and herbicide application at once. It resulted in labor saving by 98%. The prototype is composed of a metering device and a spinning disc spreader. The application rate per 10a can be varied from 1 to 3 kg and the application swath is 1.8 m, which is the planting width of the ride-on rice transplanter with 6 rows. The angular speed of spinning disc and the application height were used as design factors to obtain the uniform distribution of herbicide granules. As the result of experiment, the distribution uniformity showed a tendency to be proportional to the increases of both spinner angular speed and application height. The prototype with angular speed of spinning disc of 7359 rpm and the application height of 20 cm was made and its distribution uniformity was relatively uniform with the CV(coefficient of variation) of 21.7%. In field test, when the tested herbicides such as ACl40+Stomp and Londax+YRC were applied, the weed control has continued for 65 days since transplanting was done.