Running head: PLANT PROTECTION DRONE 1

Plant Protection Drone

Name

Institutional Affiliation
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Plant Protection Drone

Introduction

Large-scale farming at times may be very tasking more when the companies have to

actually engage in the process of taking care of the crops not to be destroyed by various agents

like birds and other living organisms in the surrounding. The modern management of sustainable

agriculture call for various things and one of them is a reliable yet fast information about the

crops being grown as whole being can hardly get the chance to move deep into the plantations. as

such the drones can be used in collecting the information that is harbored deep into the plantation

such the appearance and the magnitude of pest attacks. The rate of crop growth can also be done

by the use of drones with the bid of establishing the rate of growth of the crops while making the

necessary diagnosis to know the source of the problem (Berner & Chojnacki, 2017). However,

one thing that must be established is the t the modern time farming is moving at a high speed and

their dire need for the use of pharm machinery that exhibits a huge level of precision. Precision

farming rather is a term coined to mean doing the right thing in the right place at the right time at

the right amount.to achieves these conditions there is a need to ensure that the machinery used in

the pharm are of high qualities and are able to deliver without failing the farmer. The results of

high precision farming are high profitability, increased productivity and improved sustainability.

Precisely the drones are unmanned aerial vehicles which take the shape of the aircraft and

are navigated above the ground objects. The drones can be controlled using the GPS system

maneuver through the farms. Some of these devices are autonomously controlled by the use of

software controlled flights plans which are part of their embedded systems and onboard sensors

and GPS.t5he components which are used for making the drones allows them to cruise at high

altitude above the obstacles on the ground. The drones are made with multivariate technologies
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like infrared cameras and lesser technologies to capture what they see when they are above the

sky. However, the drones come different sizes where the large ones are majorly utilized in the

military operations, for example, the use of predator drones. The smaller ones are used for varied

reasons some of them being the used in the wildlife centers to combat poaching and survey and

protection of crops. In crop protection, the technology assists the farmers to protect the crops

from pests delivering the exact doses of pesticides to the plants while targeting specific parts of

the plants where the pests have attacked. The drones also allow the product to be released to the

crops with minimum exposure while fully utilizing the limited agricultural area.

Evolution of the Innovation

The first conception of the idea to develop UAVs who have flown automatically over the

farms to conducted various operations started in the 1900s.In the early times of introduction of

the technology, it was mainly used in the militarily for surveillance purposes. UAVs were first

used in the technology world war I and later more advanced in the World War II (Berner &

Chojnacki, 2017). In comparison to the military utilization of the drones, the nonmilitary uses are

relatively sparse but are in fast growth and taking most of the sections of the economy. At the

beginning of the 1980s, various individuals started thinking of application of the technology in

the agriculture more precisely crop production. This led to the manufacturing of the first drones

used in the farms for inspections and activities which are related to that. Since then the use of the

UAVs in the agriculture has taken to the rise more in the last decade the technology has been

used widely in agriculture more so the countries that are highly dependent on agriculture and

employs the plantation system of farming. In agriculture, the low altitude drones have been

mostly used and to lower the costs of the drones the manufactures made the fixed wings and

rotating wing model all of the moderate sizes.

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With the modern technological advancement, there are vast improvements that have been

made advanced electronic devices including the Global Positioning Systems (GPS), remote

sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which have to ease the practice of precision

agriculture. The three technologies took the technology to another level where precision

agriculture could be practiced with the company of this technology. Precision enables the

management of agriculture via zones which are coined in the basis of nutrition, crop stress, and

soil type while looking keenly the local field needs. This is opposed to the traditional methods of

cultivation here the fields are treated uniformly in the delivery of the ergonomic practices. A

concrete device that has been developed is the non-military Yamaha UAVs which is now widely

used in the agricultural operations. The first Remote-Controlled Aerial Spraying System was

coined in the year 1983 and later a better version is known as the R50 helicopter which had

improved efficiency because of the payload limit of 20kgs. Later in the year 1997, the RMAX

came into the market. Three years later in 2000 the Differential Global Positioning System

(DGPS) sensor system and azimuth emerged into the market. After this conclusive development

of the drones, an experiment was done to determine the efficiency of the system to disseminate

chemicals through the sprayers to the crops infested by pests and it was a success.

Utilization of the Innovation

Most developed countries have evolved their agriculture enough such that they have

started the application of UAVs in the practice of precision agriculture. The main reasons why

this technology is said to be common is because it is fast and it reduces the workload that the

farmer could have in doing farm related to a large-scale operation like pest inspection, spraying,

and various protection operations. UAVs are integrated with cameras and sensors that help the

farmer to monitor the sprayers as they spray the plantations with fertilizers and pesticides. The
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device version that is utilized in agriculture was designed by Yamaha and introduced into crop

farming specifically for the purposes of pesticide spraying for pest control (Mogili & Deepak,

2018).In crop farming apart from crop protection the devices are used in the monitoring of the

crop heights, filed and soil analysis as well as pesticide spraying. For the device to be fully

implemented in full use in agriculture there are critical factors that are related to hardware that

had to be considered including the payload, range of flight, the cost of the devices and the weight

of the drones. The modeling of the device has to obey the laws of aerodynamics.

An example of the application was done in Hawaii where the UAVs are sent above the

plantations up to 3500 hectares to have a view of specific sites in the plantation. The drones took

63 multispectral pictures in a period of just ten minutes above the plantation. The pictures were

then put through the process of processing on the basis of NDVI. The results from the processing

reveal the crop conditions., the drones are able to capture the condition on a specific part of the

plantation and reporting back in form of a picture which then can be analyzed. The use of these

devices is even further improved with the presence of the sensors near the cameras. The sensors

act as aiders in most of the times. Another strategy has been used where a sprayer is mounted

drones and then the system is used in the spraying of the plants. This technology has been used in

the spraying of the rice fields in Asia (Mogili & Deepak, 2018). The sprayer is mainly used in the

spraying of the high-value crop environment. These crops like rice and other thicket plantations

which are typically difficult to navigate can be sprayed in this manner successfully. The

application, however, must take into account the ability of the drones to fly and the time of flight.

These two factors affect the applicability of this technology.

The drones are also used in crop monitoring while in the field. The crop- monitoring is

essential in timing the harvest and spraying amongst other activities that are related to the
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farming. The drones are sent to the plantation and by the use of the powerful cameras, they relay

back thousands of capture of the real-time condition of the farm. Proper monitoring of the crops

allows the farmer to in nitrate a quick response of the various threats to the crops including pests

of in cases of fire outbreak from inside the plantations (Berner & Chojnacki, 2017). The drones

can also measure the uniformity of the growth of the plants within the plantation. When used in

scanning for pest infestation in the plantation the drones can equip the farm owners with the

nature of the pest band the part of the plant that the crop utilized on the plant. This information

can be sent to research outlets to come up with a regular cure before much destruction is done on

the crops. The monitoring process most of the times overlap into the research as the information

generated can be stored for Reseach references. In the process, the drones can be fitted with

thermometers and hygrometers used in measuring temperature and humidity respectively.

Constraints

Technical decisions

The current use of these devices in agriculture is marred with myriads of constrains .the

UAVs have the following limitations in their application the agricultural setups. The firsts

challenge comes with the technical decisions. The farmers get it difficult to decide on which is

the best UAVs to buy. In the market, there are a lot of vendors who sell the items. In many

occasions, the farmers are spoilt of choice on which device to purchase that will work efficiently

with the context of their farms. These challenges arise from the fact that there is no standard

protocol for the use and development of UAVs.

Cost

In the case of individual farmers, industrial applications like UAVs can be comparatively

expensive. This hence limits the individual purchase as the fathers hence have to team up in
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groups in order to buy the devices as a group. Over time the farmers have devised a method

where they assemble the parts of the device which would considerably reduce the cost. However,

even at this point, they have to be well equipped with expensive and sufficient and highly skilled

labor. Still, the communal ownership can be inconveniencing to some individual farmers who

may want to use the technology time to time in their farms.

Payload

The payload size is a contentious issue in the use of the UAVs. When purchasing the

devices and in stating them for specific uses one has to accurately configure the payload in order

to avoid misuse of the devices. For example, the devices used in spraying, the amount of the load

that the device is fed with should be able to be accommodated effectively by the device owing to

the factors like the material make-up of the drone in use. There is a need for configuration of the

mechanical and electrical system however the payload design has no general engineering

guidelines to be followed.

Operation

There need for the skilled operators and this will means that apart from the farmer there

will be a need for another person to be controlling the device. If not, the farmer will have to

undergo skilled training to the device. This is because the devices are organized in automated

takeoff and landing. For use the skilled labor has to be procured and hence the technology would

be constraining where immediate measures are needed.

Reliability

Reliability of the device can be discussed in three epithets and these are a mechanical

failure, sensitivity communication, and electronic failure. The sensitivity of communications

come in the case here these devices are operated with wireless connections in the nearby and this
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can lead to interference in the communication when the devices are away from the ground due to

distance (Huang, Thomson, Hoffmann, LAN & Fritz, 2013). Secondly, the structure of the UAVs

may not be mechanically strong enough to support agricultural operations like spraying that

involves carrying of aerial loads. In case these devices are used when they are not supposed to be

used, they can incur damages that are very expensive to repair in this case most of the farmers

shy away from the devices as they are not sure of their workability in more mechanical farm

works. Lastly, the electronic failure can come up when the electronic guidance system of the

device fails to work.

Supply chain and Economic impact

UAVs were firsts produced I Japan and over time the country has remained as one of the

top companies in the manufacturing and selling of the devices. The first device was launched by

Yamaha in 1985 bewt6een the year 1995 to 2002 the technology had improved from 307

exhibiting an annual growth rate of 13.8%. The supply chain pattern of these devices is mainly

their movement to the more developed countries as opposed to developing the nation and this

could be due to affordability. Other companies that came to produce the devices later include the

Suzuki and Yama motor. However, the drift towards achieving a better version of the technology

has led to other companies across the globe seeking more about the technology. With time the

supply chain pattern is showing to be unpredictable because technology is becoming open to the

users each and every single day.

The use of drones has a magnanimous impact in the in the agricultural economics. First,

the mechanism is easily deployed in processes like spraying hence the spares the farmers the

purchase of relatively expensive equipment used in the process of spraying. The reduced need for

equipment would mean that the number of times that the farmer does maintenance on the
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farming materials is minimal hence saving the capital. one drone can effectively spray a large

plantation and requires very little maintenance cost. According to Giles and Billing (2015), one

drone can efficiently be used by a group of farmers who would enjoy economies of scales

working together. According to Berner and Chojnacki (2017), the use of the technology in

comparison to single individualized spraying of the farms by each farmer, each farmer is bound

to save close to 23% of the expenses that they use. Additionally, the farmer does not have to

employ an individual to spray farm the in its essence increase the cost of production. However

other people have claimed that extensive mechanization in the farms has a risk of eventually

replacing the human labor in the various setups and hence exposing most people to

unemployment. The claims may be true but it is important to note that what this technology

brings on board is not merely savaging on the money used in the process of spraying but it brings

a heightened efficiency.

It is also important to note that the efficiency of spraying also leads to certain economic

values. The nozzles used by the drones are the fine delivery type and hence has the capability to

release the spraying chemicals sparingly. In the end, the farmers use a relatively over amount of

pesticides in spraying the same arrearage of the plantation as compared to when using other

methods. The other manual methods of pesticide delivery lead to consumption of a large amount

of pesticides while most of the chemicals are allowed to overflow. In countries where the

government if the day is strict on the pollution issues these farmers are forced to conduct

detoxification on the overflow, chemicals s to avoid pollution of the water bodies. The process of

detoxification is very expensive and most farmers would avoid it in case they have a chance to

(Berner and Chojnacki, 2017). When the spraying is done by the use of drones for spraying

ensures that the delivery is smooth and enough for the purposes without the overflow. In most
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case, the chemicals would be trapped on the leaves or branches of the plant where they are

expected to work without having to reach the soil. By using the drones from spraying the farmers

can save the amount that they use for detoxification for other proposes of improving the yield of

their crops.

Potential and future prospects

The speed of development in this technology in the past decade is a pointer to what the

future holds for the further development of the technology.in the next decade or more, the UAVs

produced will most probably initiate a new development design in order to incorporate a new

design and an improvement of the materials used in order to offset the limitations (Giles and

Billing, 2015). The system will be considerably easy to use especially where there are no

specially trained operators or case where the farmers themselves are to operate the devices with

the little knowledge that they have. There will be a necessity for the development of advanced

features like landing paths and take off paths that will effectively allow in the deployment of the

UAVs in agriculture more efficiently. Further, the system could be designed to provide the real-

time or near time monitoring of the growth of the plants. The sensors could be improved in terms

of the quality of the images that they project. One of the developments in line is the multispectral

camera with perfect and direct imaging fields. Beside these use of the cameras and sprayers,

there will be the use of specific cameras for specific uses.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, UAVs also known as the drones are at a point in their innovation cycle

where they are most fit to serve in agricultural purposes more so in crop farming. The technology

comes as a save for the agricultural sector. The popularity of technology comes due to it is

economically and efficiently. The operation of this technology is more like the way it is applied
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in the military operation except for other modifications to fit the current functions.in the last

decade, the technology has been used by many farmers in activities like monitoring, spraying and

diagnosing activities in the farm. Despite a very rich prospect on the technology in the future,

there is a limitation that needs to be solved including the cost, operation limitations, efficiency

issues, and technical decision issues.

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References

Mogili, U. R., & Deepak, B. B. V. L. (2018). Review on Application of Drone Systems in

Precision Agriculture. Procedia computer science, 133, 502-509.

Berner, B., & Chojnacki, J. (2017). Use of Drones in Crop Protection.

Giles, D. K., & Billing, R. C. (2015). Deployment and Performance of a UAV for Crop

Spraying. Chemical Engineering Transactions, 44.

Huang, Y., Thomson, S. J., Hoffmann, W. C., Lan, Y., & Fritz, B. K. (2013). Development and

prospect of unmanned aerial vehicle technologies for agricultural production

management. International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, 6(3), 1-

10.

Berner, B., & Chojnacki, J. (2017). Influence of the air stream produced by the drone on the

sedimentation of the sprayed liquid that contains entomopathogenic nematodes. Journal

of Research and Applications in Agricultural Engineering, 62(3).

Mogili, U. R., & Deepak, B. B. V. L. (2018). Review on Application of Drone Systems in

Precision Agriculture. Procedia computer science, 133, 502-509.