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Abstract: In recent years, multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crop protection operations have experienced tremendous growth. Compared with manual operations, they have advantages such as high operational efficiency, small pesticide dosage, and low pesticide hazards for humans. However, the tiny droplets produced during UAV spraying for crop protection are affected by the rotor air flow and will drift in all directions in an uncontrollable manner, severely affecting the pesticide deposition pattern and resulting in pesticide waste. To improve pesticide use efficiency during multi-rotor UAV spraying, an electrostatic spray system was designed based on electrostatic spray technology and a six-rotor UAV. The proper operation parameters for the UAV electrostatic spray were determined by test, which were spray altitude of 50 cm above the crop, spray pressure of 0.3 MPa and charging voltage of 9 kV. Field test was performed based on these parameters. The results showed that compared with non-electrostatic spray, the electrostatic spray improved by 13.6% in the average deposition density above the sampling device and 32.6% in the middle. The research can provide a reference for designing multi-rotor UAV electrostatic spray devices.
Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), multi-rotor, electrostatic spraying, pesticide use efficiency, plant protection
DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20171006.3460
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1Introduction
Pests and weeds severely affect crop yield and quality111. Ground crop protection spray machines are constrained by many factors including topography and later stage of crop growth, and have poor field adaptability and operational results121. As a result, agricultural aviation has become popular worldwide13-51. Large agricultural aircraft crop protection operations have the advantages such as fast operation and high efficiency161. However, because an aircraft flies at high speeds and operates at high altitudes, the vortices at both ends of the wings cause the tiny droplet spray to drift before reaching the ground17-91, which pollutes the environment and wastes pesticide1101. In comparison, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crop protection operations offer the advantages of a low operational altitude, a controllable flight velocity and better field adaptability, particularly for small fields and diversified crop planting zones111,121. Therefore, UAV crop protection technology should be studied further.
In recent years, researchers worldwide have conducted numerous studies on how to improve droplet deposition results in UAV operations. Gao et al.113'141 performed UAV corn borer prevention tests...