Study on optimization of spray parameters of drone mounted sprayer

Title : Study on optimization of spray parameters of drone mounted sprayer

Abstract:

The application of Drones have now become immensely important in various fields of agriculture and allied sectors. Recently, multi-rotor drones have become one of the dominant approaches, especially for spraying operations. Researchers and manufacturers have been quite interested in the performance of drone mounted sprayer. This study aimed to developed six-rotor battery-powered drone mounted sprayer, which was used to assess the performance in laboratory condition at University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka to assess the drone mounted sprayer operational parameters viz., discharge rate, operating pressure, height of spray, spray swath width, spray angle, uniformity of the spray distribution. The findings shows that, the more round spray droplet vertex pattern was generated during the 2.0 m hover height compared to the 1.0 m hover heights due to the direct impact of downward airflow generated by the rotors. It was concluded that, the good spray volume distribution was found at 1.0 m height of spray. The optimized operational parameters under laboratory conditions such as height of spray, operating pressure, swath width, discharge rate, spray uniformity and spray liquid loss were found to be 1000 mm, 1.37 kg cm^-2, 2987 mm, 1545 ml min^-1, 98.7 and 3.88 per cent respectively.The spray uniformity increased with increase in height of spray and operating pressure. Spray uniformity was minimum in case of lower operating pressure because of the droplet size. The VMD and NMD of spray droplet were measured and found to be 345 and 270 µm, respectively in lab condition. The average droplet density was measured and it was found to be 17 No.s cm^-2.The application rate of drone mounted sprayer was calculated by considering the optimized average values of output rate, forward speed and effective spray width were 1.5 L/min, 10.8 km/h and 2.1 meter, respectively. The average application rate was found as 40 l/ha. The study provides references for researchers and drone operator to operate drone sprayer with optimised spray operational parameters in actual field condition.

Keywords: Drone sprayer, Droplet size,Discharge rate, Spray patternator, Sprayuniformity, Height of spray

Biography:

Dr. M. Veerangouda, presently working as Registrar of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur. He has completed his Master’s and Doctoral Degree from TNAU, Coimbatore with a specialization in the field of Farm Power and Machinery. He has rich experience of more than thirty two years of service in the college and in the field of agricultural engineering and specifically in the field of farm machinery and power engineering. He has served under different capacities right from assistant professor, associate professor, professor, head of the department and also the dean of the college. He has served as Head of the department for more than ten years in the Farm Machinery and Power Engineering including the university level headship. He has guided more than twenty masters and eight doctoral students under his chairmanship. He has handled more than twenty research projects which have been funded by ICAR, GoI, GoK and also Institutional. There are more than thirty five technologies developed and popularized under his leadership and collaborative projects. He has more than hundred publications which comprise of research papers and abstracts published in reputed national and international journals, research and technical bulletins, popular articles, extension literatures etc. He has also been conferred with a number of national and international awards for the contributions in the field of farm machinery and power engineering. He is also a member of the different professional bodies like, The Institution of Engineers (India), The Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers, Karnataka Agricultural Engineers Association etc.