Development of a servo-controlled nozzle on the mobile robot for target oriented micro-dose spraying in precision weed control
Broadcast spraying method is generally used for weed control in agriculture. Therefore, excessive amounts of pesticides are sprayed. In this study, a mobile robot was developed and tested on artificial weed targets for a micro-dose spraying system that works only with weed targets in order to reduce...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universidade Estadual de Londrina
2021-02-01
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| Series: | Semina: Ciências Agrárias |
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| Online Access: | https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/semagrarias/article/view/41210 |
| Summary: | Broadcast spraying method is generally used for weed control in agriculture. Therefore, excessive amounts of pesticides are sprayed. In this study, a mobile robot was developed and tested on artificial weed targets for a micro-dose spraying system that works only with weed targets in order to reduce the use of spraying liquid in weed control. A prototype mobile robot consisted of a robotic platform, machine vision and steerable spraying unit was built and controlled by using LabVIEW, and tested to evaluate the feasibility of the spraying system. Greenness method and segmentation algorithm were utilized to extract artificial weed from the background. The artificial weed samples were treated according to their coordinates by the servo-based micro-dose spraying needle nozzle. The experiments were conducted at the speeds of 0.42, 0.54, 0.66, 0.78 and 0.90 km h-1 to evaluate the performance of the spraying system under laboratory conditions. The tracking and targeting performances of the mobile spraying system were observed visually. Consumption, the amount of deposition and coverage rate experiments were conducted by using graduated cups, filter papers and water-sensitive papers to evaluate the spraying efficiency of the system at 200 kPa spraying pressure. As a result, the targeted micro-dose spraying application saved about 95% application volume comparing with the broadcast spraying method. Higher spraying efficiency was determined at the middle locations than the edge locations according to the amount of deposition and coverage rate results. The developed servo-based target oriented weed control system was tested experimentally and found to be very efficient. |
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| ISSN: | 1676-546X 1679-0359 |