Smart agriculture is the development direction of modern agriculture, and unmanned farm is an important way to realize smart agriculture. South China Agricultural University ( SCAU )  developed a soil tillage resistance measuring equipment with GNSS in 1996 . The equipment can measure the soil tillage resistance of different areas and different depth. SCAU started to research the agricultural machinery navigation technology from 2003 and developed successfully the first unmanned rice transplanter in China in 2006.  In 2020, SCAU developed successfully the first rice unmanned farm in the world and to realize the following 5 functions:

(1)All the production links, including tillage, planting, management and harvesting, are unmanned； (2) The unmanned machineries can automatically transfer between garage and field;  (3) The machineries can automatically avoid obstacle and stop by emergency-triggered;  (4) The whole producing processes are real-time monitored;(5) Decision-making and precision operations are all intelligence-based and unmanned. Four key technologies were breakthoughed including digital information perception, intelligent decision making, precision operation and intelligent management.  

The yield of early season rice in the unmanned farm in 2021 was 9.9 t/ha, the average yield was 7.5 t/ha for this rice variety in this region.  To the end of 2022, 30 unmanned farms have been developed in 15 provinces in China, including rice, wheat, corn and peanut and reveal the great potential in the development of modern agriculture.