A smart digital agricultural monitoring platform in Xi'an City of northwest China's Shaanxi Province has leveraged China-developed BeiDou navigation system and 5G-powered aerial survey and remote sensing technologies to match in real-time the supply and demand of harvesting machinery accurately in the current prime winter wheat harvest season period from mid-May to June.
The platform, operated by the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Xi'an, provides real-time information on demands for agricultural machinery based on the city's wheat harvesting activities and geographical distribution of agricultural machinery.
"The agricultural machinery dispatching subsystem, relying on BeiDou positioning technology, can locate 1,500 wheat harvesters in our city and show their distribution and operation status in real time, which will greatly improve their dispatching efficiency, deployment path, and minimize the losses caused by disasters," said Liu Bo, a technical director of the platform.
So far, the digital, smart agricultural machinery dispatching platform has been promoted in relevant districts and counties of Xi'an. This year, more than 100 demands for agricultural machinery have been released, and the required harvesting area exceeds 860 hectares.
"We used to rely on ourselves to find work, but now we can use this platform. It is very convenient and we can find work directly through the platform. Now, work finds me and my harvester. For example, I receive four to five orders today," said Shi Jin, a harvester driver.
Xi'an has harvested half of its winter wheat, or 70,000 hectares so far.
Smart agriculture platform provides harvester positioning service in Xi'an
A China Media Group (CMG) reporter helped evacuate Chinese nationals stranded at Dubai International Airport before it was damaged in an ''incident" early on Sunday morning.
The reporter, who went to the airport by car to investigate flight delays, met several stranded Chinese nationals at the airport who had been unable to leave on their scheduled flights as the Middle East conflict forced airlines to stall operations.
The Chinese passengers said after they arrived a little before 19:00, the check-in counter was closed, raising their concern that the airport might be taken over by the military.
"I was thinking of finding some chairs for the kids to sleep on before going back to ask what was going on. At first, the airport staff offered to help, but then some people who looked like soldiers came and told us to leave," said a Chinese passenger.
Footage from the reporter showed that the area outside the airport was almost deserted, with very few vehicles. Public transportation had been suspended early, and only police cars were parked on both sides of the road, with emergency staff signaling all civilian vehicles to leave immediately.
Dubai Airports confirmed that a concourse at Dubai International Airport later sustained minor damage in what it referred to as an “incident”. Emergency response teams were immediately deployed and were managing the situation in coordination with the relevant authorities. Aviation sources told Reuters news agency that one of the terminals had been damaged during an overnight Iranian attack.
The Dubai Media Office said that four staff members sustained injuries and received prompt medical attention.
CMG reporter helps evacuate Chinese nationals from Dubai airport
