Autonomous Drone for Smart Monitoring of an Agricultural Field

Abstract

The use of technology in the field of agriculture has been on the rise in the past decade. Agriculture is the backbone of any country. Any proper technological intervention in the agricultural field would not only benefit that particular country but also the entire world. The paper proposes using an Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or a drone with swarm communication capabilities to monitor the agricultural field and help the farmers have a smooth and profitable yield of the crops. The control system discussed in the paper is integrated with the drone, which is designed from scratch. The overall body of the drone is designed using lightweight materials made from recycled ocean waste. The main idea is to make use of the swarm communication method between drones and divide the agricultural field into different regions and each drone monitoring a particular region. The swarm communication is achieved using a CC2520 RF transceiver and a GPS module integrated with the control system of the drones. The swarm communication between the drones is mainly to avoid collision between two drones when they are monitoring different parts of the field. The drones are also designed to follow pre-defined paths on the agriculture fields with the help of the GPS module. The control system of the drone makes use of sensors which help in keeping away the pests in the agricultural field, monitoring the water level in the field, checking the health of the crops using optical crop sensors. The drone is mainly used to reduce the burden of a farmer in monitoring their fields from time to time. The farmer can make use of the application installed on their smart devices to monitor their field. The drone and its working are designed in such a way that it is made easier for farmers to control the drone and monitor their fields from anywhere.