Novel Pollination Drone for Agricultural Assistance

Abstract

Abstract: One of the major issues concerning current agricultural productionis crop pollination. Approximately $74 billion per year worth of crops in rely on pollination by various pollinators. However, the recent decline ofhoney bees (i.e. colony collapse disorder) has greatly threatened productivity. Declines of other native pollinators, such as different insecttypes and animals, have also been reported. Such shortages of pollinatorshave significantly increased the cost of farmers and renting them for pollination services. To overcome this problem, this project presents an automated drone for pollination which uses deeplearning and machine learning algorithms to estimate the flower position, size, orientation, andphysical condition to guide the drone to capture and interact with flowersfor pollination. In this concept we use drone and artificial intelligence method to carry pre collected pollen and to inject them in flowers for pollination to increase productivity. Drone pollination bypasses many current issues with natural pollinators inagriculture, such as honeybee colony collapse disorder, pollinator parasites and diseases, predators, pesticide spray, adverse weather, and the availability of pollinators in a timely manner. Second, robotic pollinators will improve fruit quality andproduction. With the decreasing number of bees, artificial pollination is more in trend. If we take the example of China, 100% plants are pollinated artificially. So, we can see that artificial pollination is beneficial and can increase plant productivity. The successful completionof this project will significantly impact the field of artificial pollination inagriculture.