Evaluation of aerial spraying application of multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle for Areca catechu protection

Juan Wang; Chao Ma; Pengchao Chen; Weixiang Yao; Yingbin Yan; Tiwei Zeng; Shengde Chen; Yubin Lan

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1093912

Evaluation of aerial spraying application of multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle for Areca catechu protection

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Feb 28:14:1093912. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1093912. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Juan Wang¹, Chao Ma¹, Pengchao Chen^{2

3}, Weixiang Yao^{4

5}, Yingbin Yan⁶, Tiwei Zeng^{1

7}, Shengde Chen^{2

3}, Yubin Lan^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, China.
² National Center for International Collaboration Research on Precision Agricultural Aviation Pesticides Spraying Technology, College of Electronic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China.
³ Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ College of Information and Electrical Engineering, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China.
⁵ Liaoning Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Shenyang, China.
⁶ Patent Examination Cooperation Guangdong Center of The Patent Office, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), Guangzhou, China.
⁷ College of Information and Communication Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, China.

Abstract

Multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a new chemical application tool for tall stalk tropical crop Areca catechu, which could improve deposit performance, reduce operator healthy risk, and increase spraying efficiency. In this work, a spraying experiment was carried out in two A. catechu fields with two leaf area index (LAI) values, and different operational parameters were set. Spray deposit quality, spray drift, and ground loss were studied and evaluated. The results showed that the larger the LAI of A. catechu, the lesser the coverage of the chemical deposition. The maximum coverage could reach 4.28% and the minimum 0.33%. At a flight speed of 1.5 m/s, sprayed droplets had the best penetration and worst ground loss. The overall deposition effect was poor when the flight altitudes were greater than 11.09 m and the flight speed was over 2.5 m/s. Comparing flight speed of 2.5 to 1.5 m/s, the overall distance of 90% of the total drift increased to double under the same operating parameters. This study presents reference data for UAV chemical application in A. catechu protection.

Keywords: Areca catechu protection; LAI; aerial spray; droplet deposition; multi-rotor UAV; spray drift.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Hainan Province Science and Technology Special Fund (Grant No. ZDYF2020195), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32201670), Hainan Province Science and Technology Special Fund (Grant No. ZDYF2022XDNY273), the Academician Lan Yubin innovation platform of Hainan Province, National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32160424), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2022A1515011535), Key Research and Development projects in Hainan Province (Grant No. ZDYF2020042), National Natural Rubber Industry Technology System Project (CARS-33-JX2), Hainan Province Academician Innovation Platform (Grant No. YSPTZX202008), and the Basic and Applied Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2020A1515110214).