2023 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 66-75
With the aging population and lack of succession in Japanese agriculture, the use of agricultural drone is expanding in work such as chemical spraying. To support planning of crop protection work in large agricultural corporations, we developed a work planning system to simulate the work time of agricultural drones, named the “Agri Drone Workplan Supporter” (ADWS). ADWS is a Python QGIS plugin that uses field polygon data and local road network data to calculate the shortest travel route between fields and consequent work time within a set upper daily limit. Reflecting real conditions, the calculated work time accounts for not only the work time in the fields and the travel time between fields, but also the time of loading and unloading of equipment, battery replacement, and chemical replenishment. Considering the risk of precipitation, the ADWS could also calculates the daily workable index based on the historical precipitation data. Work plans created by ADWS could save time for users at the planning stage, thereby improve the efficiency of agricultural production.
