Development and evaluation of drone mounted sprayer for pesticide applications to crops
Application of crop protection materials is one of the crucial operations in agriculture to meet ever demanding food production. The drone mounted sprayer mainly consists of BLDC motors, LiPo (Lithium polymer) batteries, peticide tank, pump, and supporting frame. Six BLDC motors were mounted to hexa-copter frame to lift of 5 kg payload capacity. Two LiPo batteries of 6 cells — 8000mAh were used to supply the necessary current required for the propulsion system. A 5 liter capacity conical-square shaped fluid tank was used to hold the pesticide solution. A 12 V DC motor coupled with pump was used to pressurize spray liquid and then to atomize in to fine spray droplets by means of four nozzles. A suitable aluminium supporting frame was used to mount the spray liquid tank, sprayer motor, spray and supporting legs (landing gears) for safe take-off and landing. The entire drone mounted sprayer operation controlling with the help of transmitter at ground level, HD FPV camera also provide at front down side of drone sprayer unit to monitoring the live spaying operation. 1.08 ha h−1, respectively at a forward speed of 3.6 km h−1 and 1m height of spray. The cost of operation for groundnut and paddy crops using drone mounted sprayer has been worked out 345 and Rs. 367 Rs ha−1 respectively. The spray uniformity was increased with increase in height of spray and operating pressure. A VMD and NMD of spray droplet size were measured and it was found to be 345 and 270 μm, respectively in lab condition. This sprayer is very useful where human interventions are not possible for spraying of chemicals on crops including rice fields and orchard crops as well as crops under terrain lands. This technology greatly helpful for small farming community in reducing cost of pesticide application and environmental pollution but also biological efficacy of application technology.
Agridrone: Automation of Agriculture using IoT
:- Agriculture is oldest profession of mankind. Very specifically, 80 percent of Indian population is engaged in agriculture related activities. No one can deny that farmers are losing their lives due to un-manageable debts increase due to failure of crops. Crop failures are due to various reasons. One of the main reason in crop failures is due to manual based, very traditional and un-scientific agriculture practices. In this work, an intelligent system is developed to watch the development of crops and various other very timely parameters of crops development. The new system proposed here consists of a flying drone fitted with a camera eye to record images of crops in a scheduled time. The work involves developing an intelligent system by knowledge-base to guide agriculturists. The knowledge-base includes various cases of various crops and decisions based on crop image analysis. From captured images, the parameters that are planned for analysis by image processing are, the amount of green in leaf detection, moisture content in soil with supporting IoTs etc. The image of the plant will be acquired using the external camera eye fitted on drone which is interfaced with Raspberry Pi along with other different sensors modules through IOT. To detect green leaf we have to install Android studio in which PlantDoctorMaster-debug.apk file is created. Now we have to copy this apk file in the handset where TH classify application is installed. In this application select the photo captured by the Drone and the image is stored in the Raspberry pi and now diagnose the result of the selected image and we will get the confidence value.This proposed new system has practical importance both practically and commercial wise.
European Neutrality in Historical Perspective
This chapter places the neutrality policies of the established European neutral states—Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland—in historical context. It explores the origins of neutrality in the idea of non-belligerency in war and the history of neutrality in modern European international politics, highlighting the way in which quite a wide variety of states were or sought to be neutral at various points in the nineteenth century or the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter then shows how the Cold War division of Europe resulted in Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland (along with Yugoslavia) emerging as a distinctive neutral group of states between the two blocs. The chapter also reviews how the European neutral states’ foreign and security policies have adapted since the end of the Cold War. It finishes with some conclusions about neutrality in general and the neutrality of the established European neutral states in particular.