A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Agricultural Systems and Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2011

Rapid pace of population growth has increased the pressure on agricultural activities. To meet the increasing demand of food and clothing, agricultural productivity has to be increased. In this regard, precision agriculture or precision farming is one of the key underlying concept aiming to increase productivity. Precision agriculture performs the application of new technologies to reduce cost, save time and to increase overall farming productivity. In precision agriculture, precision spraying is one of the important technique to avoid the losses caused by pests, weeds and diseases, which requires costly pesticides. Due to the problems associated with conventional methods in spraying techniques, this study aims to develop a low cost prototype quad-copter mounted with CCTV wireless camera system and pesticide spraying system for precision spraying. The development and fabrication of quad-copter was carried out keeping the notion of low cost, the equipments used to developed the quad-copter were of low cost and easily found in commercial market. Integrated CCTV wireless camera system and pesticide spraying system were mounted on quad-copter during the design process. The efficiency of spraying capabilities were tested in laboratory and analyzed using coefficient of uniformity and average quantity of water in each cup. Later on, field tests were carried out to determine the performance of flying characteristics, integrated CCTV wireless camera system as well as pesticide spraying system. Finally, the results obtained from field test were discussed to see the potential of using quad-copter in real scenario. The results of coefficient of uniformity and average quantity of water in each cup for 60 and 80 degree nozzles resulted in similar pattern, CU and water content at front position showed a declining trend and for center position, increment in CU and decrease in average quantity of water in each cup were found for both nozzles. In case of 120 degree nozzle, CU at front position decreased with high declining rate, 63 .41 ~ at 0 throttle level to 29.73% at 100 throttle level, whereas at center position the decrease rate was lower, 68.63% at 0 throttle level and 50.5% at 100% throttle level, which indicated that the effects of propellers were highest in the initial stage with maximum throttle level and a little fluctuation with increase in throttle, however, the overall effects of propellers on spraying system was considerably low. The field test results yielded that precision in spraying quality was highly satisfactory, flying characteristics of quad copter was stable and to detect the target area using CCTV wireless camera system was successful, thus, on the whole there is a huge potential of applying and developing low cost quad-copter in real world for precision agriculture.