Design of a Drone-mounted Pollinator Sprayer

Abstract

Pollination work for fruit trees involves an extremely large amount of work. To solve this problem, we have been developing a rotary-wing UAV system that sprays pollen into the center of target flowers or flower clusters based on image processing. This paper describes the design and prototyping of a pollen atomizer and the results of experiments. A pressurized container was used to reduce weight and gain the flying distance of pollen. The mass flow rate to be discharged using the pressurized air depends on the nozzle diameter. Thus, the relationship between the nozzle diameter and the spray duration was determined by calculations and experiments. Based on these results, the sprayer was designed, and the spray form and number of injections were investigated by experiments.