• Journal of Information Processing Systems
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.1131-1140
• /
• 2019

Characteristics of fruit tree canopies are important target information for adjusting the pesticide application rate in variable rate spraying in orchards. Therefore, the target detection of the canopy characteristics is very important. In this study, a canopy volume measurement method for peach trees was presented and a variable rate spraying system based on canopy volume measurement was developed using the ultrasonic sensing, one of the most effective target detection method. Ten ultrasonic sensors and two flow control units were mounted on the orchard air-assisted sprayer. The ultrasonic sensors were used to detect the canopy diameters and the flow controls were used to modify the flow rate of the nozzles in real time. Two treatments were established: a constant application rate of $300Lha^{-1}$ was set as the control treatment for the comparison with the variable rate application at a $0.095Lm^{-3}$ canopy. The tracer deposition at different parts of peach trees and the tracer losses to the ground (between rows and within rows) were analyzed in detail under constant rate and variable rate application. The results showed that there were no significant differences between two treatments in the liquid distribution and the capability to reach the inner parts of the crop canopies.

• Journal of agriculture & life science
• /
• v.52 no.6
• /
• pp.111-125
• /
• 2018

In this study, we evaluated the uniformity of deposition rate and particle size distributions of the variable rate application technique using the unmanned rotorcraft by measuring the spray pattern according to path location in the range of spraying flight. The coefficient of variation (CV) of the lateral coverage rate for the overlapped distribution with the spray swath of 3.6 m in both guidance and auto-pilot flight modes maintaining constant flight speed was about 30% and the CV of the coverage rate by the flight path location was extremely small. Therefore, it was assessed that the variable rate application technology compensating for the variation of ground speed was superior in terms of spray uniformity. In addition, the droplet size distributions in both volume median diameter(VMD) and number median diameter(NMD) were adequate for aerial application and uniform in terms of lateral distribution. Thereafter, we intend to contribute to a precise application on small-scaled fields using the unmanned agricultural rotorcraft by the variable rate application.