Development of Agricultural Spraying Drones
With the development of UAV technologies, drones are becoming popular for agricultural spraying worldwide.
The characteristics of drones qualify it for being used as a chemical spraying equipment. The flexible flight capability feature allows it to be used for multiple crops spraying. While the remote control or autonomous flight mode protects people from chemical exposure. The hovering flight and cruising flight keeps the flight process under control, enabling the spraying to be fast and accurate.
Currently, multiple models of agricultural drones are under development or being used in field chemical spraying. Some of the drones are designed specializing in aircraft maneuver; while some can realize fully autonomous cruise flight. Few others are designed for longer durability in field operation.
Due to limited power source of UAV, most agricultural drones cannot solve the problem of low payload limit. For every spraying, the drone carries >10 kg chemicals for a >5 min flight. Battery needs to be recharged after every landing. Each spraying team needs to carry dozens of batteries for few hours of spraying.
Frequent chemical refilling and battery replacement results in decreased spraying efficiency, resulting in high cost for each flight.
Proper payload and power to lift UAVs are the key developments in agricultural drones. Higher the payload, lesser the shuttle time and refill time, hence improving the spraying efficiency significantly. By developing new power suppliers for drones, the payload and cruising power of Drones will be highly improved, which will definitely cause a revolutionary impact in the agricultural drone industry.
