• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.151-162
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• 2022

This study was conducted to develop a rail-type boom sprayer, performing safe spraying with improved ergonomic postures during pesticide spraying of agro-photovoltaic power system. The sprayer was designed to reduce labor cost and to be safe from pesticide exposure, and was analyzed through a comparison with a conventional spray method. The rail-type boom sprayer, consisted of a self-propelled spray and hose winder, hose, and boom sprayer parts, was designed to automatically pull and spray in the vertical and horizontal directions. The performance of the sprayer for an agro-photovoltaic power system was appropriate. From the analysis of postures with the Ovako Working posture Analysis System (OWAS), Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA), and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) methods, the musculoskeletal risk factors to the body using the rail-type boom sprayer were less than those with the conventional power sprayer. In addition, the possibility of pesticide poisoning was reduced compared to the conventional power sprayer. The working capacity with the rail-type boom sprayer was more than five times greater, compared with the conventional power sprayer. After performing pesticide spraying with the rail-type boom sprayer, the labor cost was reduced to 42,750 won·yr^-1, which was 90% (402,750 won·yr^-1) less than the cost with the use of a conventional power sprayer (445,500 won·yr^-1).

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.137-150
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• 1997

To investigate the feasibility of a boom sprayer in the paddy field, an experimental boom sprayer for both broadcast and directed spraying to the lower part of rice plants was developed. The droplet deposition characteristics of the boom sprayers were experimentally compared to those of power sprayer. Water sensitive papers(WSP) and a machine vision system were used to evaluate the coverage rate and droplet density. It was shown that the broadcast application by the boom sprayer was the best coverage among the tested sprayers. Coverage tate and droplet density were affected by the distance between nozzles and the sprayer ground speed, The best result was obtained when the distance of 30cm and the speed of 1.7km/hr. The directed application showed inconsistency in overall droplet distribution. The inconsistency was judged to be caused by conflict between plants and boom extenders. The power sprayer showed a very wide range of droplet size distribution, relatively larger droplets and inconsistency in cove The power sprayer was judged to be inadequate for the low-volume precision application because of inconsistency in performance and difficulty in adjusting the spraying rate. Based on the droplet coverage characteristics, it was concluded that the self-propelled boom sprayer for the broadcast application was feasible for an alternative to the power sprayer in case of low volume, precision application in paddy condition.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.151-162
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• 1997

Chemical application is one of the most important field operation in rice production. Rolling of a boom due to local unevenness and softness in fields causes a local under/over-application of spray. In this study, the vertical movement of boom tips due to unevenness of ground in paddy fields was investigated, and an active pendulum suspension control system was designed and tested for compensating the movement and balancing the boom to the ground. The results for testing the performance of the control system showed that the system could balance the boom both in flat and inclined fields. The active pendulum control system developed in this study could be properly used for improving spraying performance of a boom sprayer.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.211-218
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• 1998

A variable flow-controlled boom sprayer was developed and evaluated. Field tests were conducted to evaluate the adoptability of the sprayerr with optimal conditions. Negative response time was obtained from the field test because pump and PTO were interlocked with the speed of sprayer. Another reason for the negative value was due to the definition of the response time. With constant on-time control, the system was unstable at the conditions of small tolerance and long control interval. The performances of the spray system were stable and accurate. The stable and synchronous responses were achieved with a variable on-time control. The flow control system with an optimal condition (1.0 sec of control interval, 2 of damping ratio, 1% of tolerance) provided the proper performance for uniform spraying. A standard operating procedure of the flow compensating boom sprayer for the ground speed variation was presented and recommended.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.406-413
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• 1996

A control system for a self-propelled boom sprayer to spray at uniform application rate was developed and evaluated. The ground speed of the sprayer was converted into voltage. The voltage was used as an input signal. Output signal was current of a servo motor, that controlled application pressure of the sprayer with a feedback control system. Spraying was executed at the pressure of 20~55 psi and the speed of 0.640~0.696 km/hr and 1.040-1.131 km/hr. Although the pressure and the speed of sprayer were changed continuously, application rate was tried to keep a nearly constant amount of 666.67 L/ha. This result showed that the developed control system for uniform application rate was adoptable for the self-propelled sprayer.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.258-264
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• 2017

Purpose: This study determines the spray characteristics and effective spray width of a tractor-mounted commercial boom sprayer through experiments. Methods: Performance tests were conducted to investigate the spray characteristics of the nozzles on a commercial boom sprayer. The flow rate and spray width of a single nozzle were measured at three levels of spray pressure (0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 MPa) and spray height (15, 30, and 45 cm), respectively. The average value of three repetition tests was used as the representative value. A coefficient of variation (CV) was used as an index of spray uniformity, and the width that guarantees CV values of approximately 15% was determined as the effective spray width. The spray characteristics of the overall boom sprayer were derived analytically by superimposing the spray characteristics of a single nozzle. Results: The test results for a single nozzle showed that the spray width tended to increase as the spray height and spray pressure increased. The effective spray width for a single nozzle was the largest at a spray pressure of 1.0 MPa and spray height of 45 cm, which resulted in a coverage of 84 cm of width. The effective spray width for the entire boom sprayer was also the largest at the spray pressure of 1.0 MPa and spray height of 45 cm, with a magnitude of 424.5 cm. The chemical spraying work in an actual field was simulated by applying a spray width of 400 cm. As a result of the operation for three swaths, the CV value was less than 10% for 1,200 cm of the overall spray width, which meant that uniform application was achieved. Conclusions: It was reasonable to set the effective spray width of the boom sprayer used in this study to 400 cm.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.31 no.3 s.116
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• pp.146-152
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• 2006

Most upland in Korea have irregular field shapes. Boom sprayers working alone winding row will show considerable differences of spraying amount per unit area between left and right booms. If flow rates of both booms are equal. This phenomenon becomes significant as steering radius of sprayer decreases. This study was performed to seek a method which reduce the difference of the spray amount between left, right and center booms while spraying along curvy rows. A flow rate control method for keeping application rate of each boom section constant was proposed and experimentally proved using a boom sprayer attached to a cultivating tractor. The flow rate control device was composed of 3 ball valves and a rotary angle sensor. The rotary angle sensor showed a symmetric voltage output with respect to steering radius. The spray overlapping was happened in a boom nearby the steering center when steering radius of the sprayer was less than 5.2 m. Flow rates for left, right and center booms were regulated using ball valves based on the steering radius and spraying areas ration of right/left boom. The Maximum spraying area ratio ($S_{LR}$) of left to right boom section was 1:3.6 at the steering radius of 5.2 m. However, The Maximum achieved right and left spraying flow ratio was 1:2.7.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.34-43
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• 1996

The present pesticide application technology widely used with a power sprayer in Korea is assessed as the problem awaiting solution in the point of view of its ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and environmental contamination. As one approach to get rid of these problems, the boom spraying with ultra-low volume and precision application technology has been recommended. The study was undertaken to investigate plants damages incurred by the self-propelled boom-sprayer vehicle, to develop the design criteria of vehicle wheel, and to compare plant damages caused by the front wheel steering vehicle, the 4-wheel drive vehicle and the articulated vehicle, by the computer simulation. The experiment showed that the amount of damaged plants incurred by the self-propelled boom sprayer were about 0.29% in average in the field size of 100m$\times$50m(0.5ha), about 60~80% of which recovering while growing. The recommandable wheel size was analyzed to be 70~100cm in diameter, 8~15cm in width from the vehicle-plant-soil relationship. The simulation on damaged plants anticipated to be incurred by various steering vehicles showed that the smaller the turning radius, the lesser the damaged plants within its range of 3~5m. Average plant damage rate by the front wheel steering vehicle, the 4-wheel drive vehicle and articulated vehicle was relatively assessed to be 2 : 1.8 : 1.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.195-199
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• 2016

Spraying of nozzles and design of tractor-attached boom sprayers have been studied for analysis of liquid spraying features. The following conclusions have been drawn. At all pressures, twin flat spray tips was finer than flat spray tips. A fine spray with VMD of 101 to 200 appeared at 1.5MPa. So, it was selected as the boom sprayer nozzle. In spraying uniformity analysis, Type B was proven to have more uniformity than Type A and Type C at 52.0 cm attached distance. Type A and Type C were proven to have more uniformity than Type B at 58.5 cm attached distance. It is concluded that these results reflect atomizing characteristics of nozzles during pest control with tractor-attached boom sprayer. Therefore, optimum setting will be putting Type C with 58.5 cm distance.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.115-124
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• 1998

Over- and under-application of pesticides to crops have recently become main concerns regarding the environment conservation, product cost and firmer's safety. Thus, a uniform and optimal application method of pesticides was needed. The objective of study was to evaluate flow compensating characteristics of a variable flow control system for a boom sprayer using a laboratory setup. At the most variable conditions, the control system was acceptable with the flowrate control strategy. However, the sprayer control system became unstably fluctuating at the long execution time with small tolerance because of the constant valve on-time. This problem was solved by employing a variable on-time control. The optimal values for the damping ratio and the execution time were 2 and 1.0 sec, respectively, with the tolerances less than 3%. The performance of the control system at the optimal conditions were the response time of 3.8sec and the absolute steady-state error of 0.5% with the stable RCV and ROS ( < 1.0).