Abstract
The dosage sprayed upon per unit area is an important index to measure the effects of pesticide application. Owing to the fact that parameters such as flight height, flight speed, and spray swath can change at any given time, it is impossible to ensure a consistent amount of pesticide application per unit area during the course of aerial variable spray. In order to ensure a consistent amount of pesticide application per unit area, a set of control models of aerial variable spray using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was proposed, and the corresponding control system was developed based on the technology of aerial variable spray. According to the change of flight parameters, this system was able to adjust the opening degree of solenoid valve through the control model of aerial variable spray. After that, the amount per unit time would change to ensure a consistent amount of pesticide application per unit area, which effectively avoided the phenomenon of uneven pesticide application and improved the accuracy. According to the actual demand for the area in need of pesticide application, the operator can manually control the amount of pesticide applied and change the dosage sprayed upon per unit area to achieve a better effect. Through field tests, it was verified that the system has high accuracy of variable control. The deviation range was between 0.11% and 9.79%, which met the demands of agricultural aviation pesticide application. Furthermore, the system had strong stability for working continuously for more than 6 h at 30°C to meet the environmental requirements of pesticide application via UAV. All the data related to the pesticide application were stored in this system, which provided a reference for the further study of the precision technology in pesticide application. The model proposed in this paper also provided a theoretical basis for the technology development of aerial variable spray.
Highlights
There are three main methods used to apply pesticides in China including manual application, mechanical application on the ground, and aviation application [1,2]
The multivariate tests results showed that the system accurately calculated the spray volume when multiple flight parameters changed at the same time according to the variation of
A mathematical model of the real-time control of aerial variable spray was proposed with the focus on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) spray operation
Summary
There are three main methods used to apply pesticides in China including manual application, mechanical application on the ground, and aviation application [1,2]. The control system of variable spray designed by Zhang et al [12], as well as the variable-rate spray system designed by Lian et al [18]or Yao et al [19], can automatically adjust the amount of pesticide application in the pipeline according to the change of flight speed of the aircraft. The methods for controlling the amount of pesticide within their study are limited In their studies, they predominantly focused on remote-distance control and manual control, where the automatic control method of the amount can only be regulated according to a single variable, and it is unable to simultaneously adjust and control the amount of spray based on multiple parameters (such as the flight height, flight speed, and spray swath). The accuracy of variable control was tested and analyzed
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