DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDE SPRAYING

DRONE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 DEFINITION

A drone is an unmanned aircraft that can fly autonomously—that is, without a human in
control. ... For example, consider an aircraft that is under the control of a remote pilot for most
but not all of a mission. The small aircraft which operates by itself without any human being is
known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. It is also referred by its abbreviation as UAV. It is
popularly known as Drone. The drone used for agricultural activities is known as agriculture
drone. It is mainly used to assist in crop production and to monitor crop growth. The drone can
be either remotely controlled or it can travel as per predefined path using complex automation
algorithm built during its development. It uses advanced agriculture Sensors and digital imaging
capabilities including high resolution camera. It uses wireless chip for wifi and/or cellular
connectivity as per design.
Agriculture in Ethiopia constitutes more than 60% of occupation. It serves to be the
backbone of Ethiopian economy. It is very essential to improve the productivity and efficiency of
agriculture by providing safe cultivation of the farmer. The various operations like spraying of
pesticides and sprinkling fertilizer are very important. Though spraying of pesticides has become
mandatory it also proves to be a harmful procedure for the farmers. Farmers especially when
they spray urea, take to many precautions like wearing appropriate outfit masks and gloves. It
will avoid any harmful effect on the farmers. Avoiding the pesticides is also not completely
possible as the required result has to be met. Hence fore, use of robots in such cases gives the
best of the solutions for this type of problems, along with the required productivity and
efficiency of the product [1]. According to survey conducted by WHO (world health
organization) it is estimated that every year about 3 million workers are affected by poisoning
from pesticides from which 18000 die. This projects aims to overcome the ill-effect of the
pesticides on human beings and also use to spray pesticides over large area in short intervals of
time compare to conventional spraying by using automatic fertilizer sprayer. This device is
basically combination of spraying mechanism on a quad copter frame. This model is used to
spray the pesticides content to the areas that cannot easily accessible by humans. The universal
sprayer system use to spray liquid as well as solid contents which are done by the universal
nozzle

1.2 Problem statement

Up to the date, the pesticides are spraying by the conventional methods by using the hand pumps
on the back or by manually by throwing using hands. So this methods are very time consuming
and dangerous for the health issues. Because there is continuously contact of the human with the
pesticides and this very dangerous things for health. And also sometimes it is not possible to
reach to the each and every crop sapling for being pesticide. So this may lead to spreading a
disease which can be observed due to insufficient supply of the pesticides and this may cause to
the decrease in the yield. Specially in our country Ethiopia this problem is several. Still today our
farmers used hand pump pesticide spraying method wich cause skin irritation to birth defects,
tumors, genetic changes, blood and nerve disorders, endocrine disruption, coma or death. Not
only farmers in different agricultural investment there is no modern technology for this porpuse.
In many flower and other crop agriculture investment pesticide spraying workers are suffer in
their health because of the absence of such modern technology. As a whole according to survey
conducted by WHO (world health organization) it is estimated that every year about 3 million
workers are affected by poisoning from pesticides from which 18000 die. Ethiopia is one of the
country of this problem was aggress broadly. Our project is aim to solve this problem and also
first ever for our country.

1.3 Objectives
1.3.1 General Objective
The goal of our project is designing and developing agricultural pesticide spraying Drone
for the purpose of spraying pesticide in agricultural activities

1.3.2. Specific Objectives

1.4. Significance
  This method can be used in all situations, especially in the places where labors are hard to
find.
 Environmental pollution can be reduced when it sprayed from lower altitude.
 It has a great potential to enhance pest management for small as well as the large crop
field to entail highly accurate site-specification application
 It helps in achieving more yields by using resources effectively. It provides good ROI
(Return on Investment).
 Drones are used in large scale farming for spraying of insecticides and pesticides due to
its remote control operation from distant.
 It helps in monitoring environmental data which helps in smart farming.
 It helps farmers in scouting their fields quickly and efficiently. This saves time in
determining status of fields.
 They are easy to use with very basic training.
 Latest agriculture drones help in collecting data which helps in improving crop health.
 It has integrated GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping. It helps in storing and
analyzing all types of geographical and spatial data. It helps farmers in mapping in order
to boost yields and in cutting costs to take business forward.
 With push of a button drone can return home.
 Thermal cameras help in finding wet and dry patches. This helps farmers avoid wastage
of water.

1.5 Limitations

 It requires basic knowledge and skills to operate the agriculture drones.