Development of 3D-Printed Agricultural Drone (Ardufarmer)

Abstract

This study addresses the labor crisis that the agriculture industry faces and the need for an alternative planting technology for farmers. Ardufarmer is a seed sowing machine that combines the emerging additive manufacturing technology and quadcopter robotics to form an alternative broadcast farming method that efficiently covers a given land area in the least amount of time through planting toolsets: seed reservoir, dispenser valve, drill, Arduino, and GPS programming. The quadcopter development includes designing the drone fuselage and seed dispenser, three-dimensional printing (3D printing) the parts under different settings, simulation and analysis of 3D-printed parts, and programming the Arduino board and GPS mechanism. The drone was tested in different land areas in terms of time spent. The study shows that the planting rate of the drone is more efficient at 36.41 seconds in 50 square meters than manual planting at 144 seconds in 50 square meters. The Ardufarmer was tested in terms of height, time spent, and spreading diameter in different land areas. The device can effectively sow seeds in 12 seconds per square meter. The study also shows that the minimum percentage relative time saving of the proposed drone technology is 74.72%.