Design and Development of a Drone for Spraying Pesticides, Fertilizers and Disinfectants

Abstract

There are too many technologies involved in today's Agriculture, out of which spraying pesticides using drones is one of the emerging technologies. Manual pesticide spraying causes many harmful side effects to the personnel involved in the spraying process. The Exposure effects can range from mild skin irritation to birth defects, tumors, genetic changes, blood and nerve disorders, endocrine disruption, coma or death. The WHO (World Health Organization) estimated as one million cases of ill affected, when spraying the pesticides in the crop field manually. This paved the way to design a drone mounted with spraying mechanism having 12 V pump, 6 Litre storage capacity tank,4 nozzles to atomize in fine spray , an octocopter configuration frame ,suitable landing frame, 8 Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors with suitable propellers to produce required thrust about 38.2 KG(at 100% RPM) and suitable Lithium-Polymer (LI-PO) battery of current capacity 22000 mAh and 22.2 V to meet necessary current and voltage requirements. A First-Person View (FPV) camera and transmitter can also be fixed in the drone for monitoring the spraying process and also for checking pest attacks on plants. This pesticide spraying drone reduces the time, number of labor and cost of pesticide application. This type of drone can also be used to spray disinfectant liquids over buildings, water bodies and in highly populated areas by changing the flow discharge of the pump.