Design and Development of a Low-cost UAV for Pesticide Applications

Abstract

Intensive pesticide applications are used for plant protection in Turkey and in the world. Orchard sprayers, field sprayers and atomizers are commonly used machinery for pesticide applications. The recent developments in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies have made multi rotor UAVs suitable for precision pesticide applications as these vehicles do not damage crop due to field traffic, can operate in sloping terrain freely and have data storage capabilities. Despite these advantages, their relatively high costs and requirements for technical skills to operate these vehicles are among the factors limiting their use in agriculture. In this research, a prototype multi rotor UAV for aerial pesticide applications was designed and manufactured. Computer aided design and analyses were used for the development of the UAV. The developed hexacopter UAV has an aluminum frame and carries a 5 liters pesticide tank and powered by a 222 W battery. The UAV is also equipped with an aerial camera, GPS and electronics a suitable for autonomous flights. The laboratory and field experiments were conducted to verify the features of the developed UAV successfully.

Keywords

• Hexacopter
• UAV
• pesticide application
• precision agriculture
• image analysis.

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