Design, Prototype Manufacturing and Performance of a Drone for Vineyard Spraying

Abstract

The application of pesticides in vinyard areas is of crucial importance for grape yields. Field sprayers and atomizers are commonly used for pesticide applications in vinyards. The aim of this research is to develop a drone that will be an alternative to ground vehicles, to expand its use, to reduce the use of pesticides, as well as safer production with less pesticides in the environment, in vinyards area. In accordance to this purpose, a drone (unmanned aerial vehicle) with 6 motors and a multi-copter system (Hexacopter) was designed and prototype manufactured by using open source software program.

The flight tests were carried out in the vineyard areas of Dicle University. In the experiments, water sensitive papers and filter papers were used to measure the amount of trace substance deposite rate and coverage rate. These papers were placed in the upper, middle and lower parts of the vine before started of the tests. Spraying experiments were then carried out at 0.5 ms^-1, 1.00 ms^-1 and 2 ms^-1flight speeds and at different flight altitude such as 30 cm, 60 cm and 90 cm and different part of vine as upper, middle and lower part. Each test was carried out triplicated.

According to results, spray deposition and coverage rates were found to decrease with increased flight speed of drone and flight altitudes. At all flight speeds and altitudes, the highest amount of deposite and coverage rate were found in the upper part of the vine, while this ratio decreased towards the lower region. The increase in the spray altitude was negatively affected the penetration of the droplets into the plant. In general, the best amount of trace material deposite and coverage rate were was obtained at 0.5 ms^-1 flight speed of drone, 30 cm flight altitude and upper section of vine. While the amount of deposite in the plant at 0.5 ms-1 flight speed was obtained 19.61 µgcm^-2, this value decreased to 11.21 µgcm^-2 at 60 cm altitude and 6.05 µgcm^-2 at 90 cm flight altitude. As a result, we can argued that droplet distribution will be more homogeneous, droplet deposition effect well, and environmental pollution will be reduced, in the application of the remote-control drone and low ltitude sprayin, it also will play a very important role in the vinyard pest control.