DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATED PESTICIDE APPLICATION SYSTEM

Abstract

Over an extended duration, concerns have been mounting due to the excessive use of pesticides in crop management.Conventional spraying techniques, which utilize sprayers with a consistent application rate, lead to each plant receiving an identical dosage of pesticides.This inefficiency becomes particularly evident when applying pesticides between rows, resulting in significant chemical waste.To address this challenge, an innovative real-time robotic spraying system has been developed to ensure precise and targeted pesticide application.System is composed of robotic unmanned vehicle, ultrasonic wave-based sensor, microcontroller board, electronic pump, nozzle for dispensing pesticides and a solenoid valve unit.The time interval between sensing and solenoid actuation exhibited variations ranging from 0.42 to 0.63 seconds.The performance was assessed based on parameters such as droplet size, density and uniformity coefficient and spray deposition across different plant positions.Utilizing deposit scan software, the droplet size recorded for Gerbera plants ranged from 227.56 m to 241.65 m.Meanwhile, droplet density, uniformity coefficient, and spray deposition ranged from 27.50 to 31.20 drops/cm 2 , 1.67 to 2.17 and 0.81 to 0.87, respectively.Notably, the observed liquid savings in Gerbera plants ranged from 25.77% to 31.73%.Consequently, the cropspecific robotic sprayer demonstrated a significant reduction in pesticide losses compared to conventional spraying methods.