Application performance of fuel-powered multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle in maize plant protection

Abstract

In recent years, fuel-powered multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been increasingly applied in high-stalk crops, because of their stronger rotor wind field. More and more attention has been paid to UAV application performance in high-stalk crops. Maize is a kind of typical high-stalk crops and it is also one of the main food crops and its planting area ranks third inChina, second only to wheat and rice. In this study, a field test was conducted to investigate the application performance in maize crop protection of fuel-powered UAVs and droplets deposition effect on different canopies and leaf positions. The results show that: Due to the assistance of rotor wind field, the coverage rate of droplets in the three maize canopies is all high, but the deposition uniformity in the middle and upper canopy is poor. For the middle and lower leaves of maize, as the height of the leaves position increases, the droplets deposition on the maize leaves increases slowly. For the middle and upper leaves, as the height of the leaves position increases, the droplets deposition increases sharply. Compared with the coverage rate of droplets on the 7th leaf, the coverage rate of the droplets on the 10th maize leaf has increased by 127.12%. For the middle and upper canopy, the coverage rate of droplets in the maize leaf sheath is the highest, followed by the middle leaves, and the lowest tip. For the middle and lower canopy, the coverage rate of the droplets in the middle of the maize leaves is the highest, followed by the sheath, and the lowest tip. Keywords: droplets, coverage rate, maize, fuel-powered UAV DOI: 10.33440/j.ijpaa.20210402.180 Citation: Zhang H Y, Lan Y B, Xu T Y, Yu F H. Application performance of fuel-powered multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles in maize plant protection. Int J Precis Agric Aviat, 2021; 4(2): 36–39.