Obstacle Avoidance and Profile Ground Flight Test and Analysis for Plant Protection UAV

Abstract

In recent years, with the further development of agricultural aviation technology, the plant protection UAV has been widely used, especially in some agricultural environments with limited operating conditions due to its advantages of high efficiency, environmental protection and safety guarantee. A plant protection UAV generally flies at low altitude during operation. However, the low altitude operation environment, such as farmland and mountainous areas, is relatively complex, and is faced with many types of obstacles, proposing higher requirements for obstacle avoidance and the profiling system of a plant protection UAV. In order to test the obstacle avoidance and profiling performance of the commercialized plant protection UAV at this stage and explore the performance boundary of obstacle avoidance and profiling of the UAV, EAVISION E-A2021 and XAG P80, the flagship models of the plant protection UAV manufacturer on the market, were hereby selected as the experimental test objects in the paper. Firstly, the obstacle avoidance and profiling test scheme of plant protection UAVs is designed; then, the above two UAVs are adopted for corresponding tests, and the test data are discussed based on the analysis of software and hardware technology; finally, the practical application status of different obstacle avoidance and profiling technologies of plant protection UAVs is clarified, and the shortcomings of obstacle avoidance and profiling technology of plant protection UAVs on the market are summarized, providing a reliable reference for the future development of plant protection UAVs.