Studies on Operational Parameters of Drone Mounted Sprayer to Determine the Application Rate for Herbicide Application in Crops

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to study the operational parameters drone mounted sprayer to determine the actual application rate required. The hexa-copter drone mounted sprayer of 10 L was selected to for pre-field test. The treatment plot size of 15mx20m area was marked. The drone mounted sprayer operated at autonomous mode. The experiments were conducted at five different levels of independent parameters, viz, forward speed (1, 2, 3.5 5 and 6 m) and height of spray (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 m). Dependent parameters like as swath width, application rate and field capacity were determined. The design expert software RSM central composite design was sused for optimal number of experiments. The total combinations of 13 experiment treatments were conducted. The results obtained at the maximum and minimum application rate of drone mounted sprayer was found to be 133 and 33.1 l ha-1. The swath width of drone mounted sprayer was in the range of 1.8 to 6 m.