• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1998.12a
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• pp.493-497
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• 1998

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.289-295
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• 2008

The task of chemical spraying has been seriously considered as an irritating and annoying job for Korean rice farmers. An agricultural unmanned helicopter was suggested to solve this problem so as the farmers to have more decent farming condition. The objectives of this study were to analyze the adoptability of an experimental rotor blade (SW05) using the CFD simulation and also to compare the simulation results with experimental results. The simulation results showed that the induced power of this rotor reached to $57{\sim}63%$ of total power and the profile power was about $37{\sim}43%$ of total power. Therefore it can be concluded that this rotor's performance characteristics were not so efficient for the size of unmanned helicopter due to the low induced power and high profile power relatively compared with ones of conventional rotors. The comparison with experimental results showed that the tested lifts were less than 70% of simulated ones at the grip pitch of $12^{\circ}$ and decreased to 40% at the $18^{\circ}$ grip pitch. Therefore, it can be concluded that the rotor was too oversized to be used for a 15.4 kW (21 PS) engine.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.31 no.2 s.115
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• pp.102-107
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• 2006

Opening agricultural market progresses radically, reducing cost of high quality agricultural products becomes urgent. Aerial application using an agricultural helicopter helps precise and timely spraying and reduces labor intensity and pollution. The development of an agricultural helicopter was necessary for taking advantages of both technique and economy. In this study, as the first stage of developing an unmanned helicopter capable of 20kg payload, an engine was selected and a prototype transmission was designed for an agricultural helicopter. Prony type dynamo-meter was constructed, the engine was tested and then performance curve was obtained. The centrifugal clutch was engaged at the rotation speed of 3,500-4,000 rpm. Maximum power was expected at the engine speed of 5,900-6,200 rpm when adjusted at the optimal output. Based on the test results, the transmission was designed for driving main rotor shaft.

• Agribusiness and Information Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2014

This study was conducted to determine the major patent and analyze the patent trend of unmanned and automated agricultural production for the open field operation. As a result of conducting a search for patent applications related to these technologies, 1,080 valid patents were selected by evaluating the relevance of the patents and removing noise patents. As a result of the country-based analysis using the selected valid patents, it was found out that the largest number of patent applications were filed in the United States with 541 cases, followed by Japan with 326 cases, the European Union with 128 cases, and Korea with 85 cases. Upon classifying the valid patents into core technology, the path generation and tracking technology accounts for 33% with 353 cases; the implementing control with environmental condition technology accounts for 22% with 236 cases; the robot design technology accounts for 21% with 228 cases; the plant and environment sensing technology accounts for 19% with 206 cases; the yield and quality monitoring technology accounts for 5% with 58 cases. Finally, 10 core patents were selected by performing a patent index evaluation. The United States registered all of the 10 core patents. The results showed that Korea falls behind in the open field-related unmanned and automated agricultural production, compared to other developed agricultural countries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.392-399
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• 2006

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2010

A small unmanned helicopter was suggested to replace the conventional spray system. Aerial application using an agricultural helicopter helps precise and timely spraying, and reduces labor intensity and environmental pollution. In this research, a rotor system (SW05) was developed and its lift capability was evaluated. Lift force for the dead weight of the helicopter was obtained at the grip pitch angle of $12^{\circ}$. As the pitch angle increased to $14^{\circ}$ and $16^{\circ}$, the payload increased to 176 N and 216 N, respectively. Compared with SW04 airfoil performance in the total lift, the SW05 airfoil showed nearly the same capacity, but the payload of the SW05 was reduced because of the increased dead weight. A rated flight condition was defined as lifting mean payload of 294 N with the grip pitch angles of $16{\sim}17^{\circ}$ at the rotor rotating speed of 850~950 rpm for the adjusted engine power. The fuel consumption would be 4.8~6.0 L/hr, and the air temperature of cooling fan should be kept below $160^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.89-94
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• 2009

Aerial application using an agricultural unmanned helicopter was suggested for an alternative against current pesticide application methods. Centrifugal clutches play important roles in the performance and safety of the helicopter operation. A previous study analyzed and verified the power transfer theory of the guide type centrifugal clutch. Based on the clutch theory, optimal designs of the clutch became possible and feasible using a simulation method. Design criteria of the clutch were the power transfer capacity of 24.66 kW(33.5 PS) at the rated engine speed and the engaging range speed of 3,000${\sim}$3,500 rpm. Various designs were accomplished using the simulation. An optimal clutch was simulated by determining the values of spring constant and mass of friction sector, which were 94,700 N/m and 123.7 g, respectively. The design performed the power capacity of 24.86 kW(33.8 PS) and engagement speed of 3,069 rpm, meeting the design criteria. Using the designed clutch, an efficient transfer of the power would be possible for the unmanned agricultural helicopter.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.215-223
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• 2010

In order to develop an precision aerial pesticide application system to be attached to an unmanned helicopter which can be applied to small lots of land, this study analyzed the flowing and spraying characteristics of the spray droplets by the main rotor downwash by setting the application conditions at the flight altitude of 3 m, the diameter of main rotor of 3.1 m, the boom length of around 2.8 m, and the spraying rate of 8 L/ha. The results of this study are summarized below. Through analysis of the covering area ratio of the spray droplets by main rotor downwash by nozzle type, boom with tilt angle and height, it was found that the covering area ratio of the twin flat-fan nozzle of around 25% was more uniform than other types of nozzle, also boom with $10^{\circ}$ tilt angle and spraying height of 3 m was shown to be the appropriate conditions for aerial application of pesticides. It was found that the nozzle position to minimize the scattering loss of spray droplets due to vortex phenomenon at both ends of the main rotor was around 10 cm from the end of the main rotor. An application test for the aerial pesticide application system attached to the HUA-ACEI unmanned helicopter developed by the Rural Development Administration showed that the range of covering area ratio of the spray droplets was 10-25%, and the spraying width was approximately 7 m when over 10% of covering area ratio was considered for valid spraying.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.159-163
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• 2014

Agricultural unmanned helicopters have become a new paradigm for aerial application. Yet, such agricultural helicopters require easy and affordable attitude control systems. Therefore, this study presents an affordable attitude measurement system using a DCM (direction cosine matrix) algorithm that would be applied to agricultural unmanned helicopters. An IMU using a low-cost MEMS and an algorithm to estimate the attitude of the helicopter were applied in a gimbals structure to evaluate the accuracy of the attitude measurements. The estimation errors in the attitude were determined in comparison with the true angles determined by absolute position encoders. The DCM algorithm and sensors showed an accuracy of about 1.1% for the roll and pitch angle estimation. However, the accuracy of the yaw angle estimation at 3.7% was relatively larger. Such errors may be due to the magnetic field of the stepping motor and encoder system. Notwithstanding, since the intrinsic behavior of the agricultural helicopter remains steady, the determination of attitude would be reliable and practical.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2014

The precision aerial application of agricultural unmanned helicopters has become a new paradigm for small farms with orchards, paddy, and upland fields. The needs of agricultural applications require easy and affordable control systems. Recent developments of MEMS technology based on inertial sensors and high speed DSP have enabled the fabrication of low-cost attitude system. Therefore, this study evaluates inertial MEMS sensors for estimating the attitude of an agricultural unmanned helicopter. The accuracies and errors of gyro and acceleration sensors were verified using a pendulum system. The true motion values were calculated using a theoretical estimation and absolute encoder measurement of the pendulum, and then the sensor output was compared with reference values. When comparing the sensor measurements and true values, the errors were determined to be 4.32~5.72%, 3.53~6.74%, and 3.91~4.16% for the gyro rate and x-, z- accelerations, respectively. Thus, the measurement results confirmed that the inertial sensors are effective for establishing an attitude and heading reference system (AHRES). The sensors would be constructed in gimbals for the estimating and proving attitude measurements in the following paper.