A Hazard-Free Framework for Aerial Distribution of Pesticides on Agricultural Land

Abstract

Pesticide spray is essential for pest control, crop production and protection. However, the direct contact of these pesticides with humans may cause cancer, complication in the respiratory system and neurological disorders. This problem is more severe in developing countries as each year more than 100 thousand death cases are reported by World Health Organization. This work presents a modification approach of Quadcopter into a UAV, in such a way that it can fly in manual as well as autopilot mode and can spray on agricultural lands using its ground control station. In this work, a stable system is developed for aerial distribution of pesticides as well as fertilizer to reduce human contact with pesticides. The system consists of; a) a remotecontrolled UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) which is controlled from ground through a flight controller and b) a spraying system which is manually triggered by RF controlled circuit. The reliability of the proposed framework is evaluated on a test area of around 1000m². The pumping rate of sprayer system is adjusted to 40 mL/min with PWM at 45% duty cycle. From results it can be concluded that the integration of UAV with the spray system results in a spraying mechanism which is very efficient and hazard-free for crop pest management in the small field area.