Journal of Scientific Research and Reports

The increasing demand for efficient, safe, and cost-effective crop protection has accelerated the application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in agricultural spraying. This paper presents the design and Performance Evaluation of a quadcopter drone sprayer for Agriculture and disinfection. The system aims to reduce manpower, running time, spray costs and human exposure to hazardous chemicals that are found in conventional ground-based spraying methods. The customized quadcopter drone is capable of stable and sustained flight up to 800 min the field, showing a great reliability for agricultural applications. Performance test showed that the drone can carry 700g payload and it lasts for 8 minper flight, moreover its maximum no-load endurance is up to 27 min, which makes it suitable for short-duration and frequent spraying operations.The operational efficiency of the drum sprayer was 87% and it provided an effective field coverage rate of 0.375 ha/h, which indicated that it can be used for small- and medium-scale farms. Spray assessment revealed speed uniformity of 11.5 cm with proper overlap for canopy deposition and spray drift mitigation respectively. The nozzle can be used with pesticides, disinfectants, and antiseptic liquids to apply them in fields, water systems, on building surfaces or other densely populated areas much more safely and accurately. Its efficiency and suitability with a wide variety of crops make it increasingly important in different agricultural scenarios and public health programs.

The developed quadcopter drone sprayer is a simple, effective and safe approach compared to the traditional spraying method and signify a good potential for further application of pest control besides microorganism killing activities in precision agriculture and environmental sanitation.