An Effective Precision Afforestation System for UAV

Haiyang Liu (), Zhuo Chen, Zhiliang Wang and Jian Li
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Haiyang Liu: Institute for Public Safety Research, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Zhuo Chen: Institute for Public Safety Research, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Zhiliang Wang: The Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Survey Technology and Application, Ministry of Natural Resources, Guangzhou 510300, China
Jian Li: Institute for Public Safety Research, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: Much agricultural and forestry land in the world cannot be accessed by ground planting equipment because of traffic, terrain, and other factors. This not only causes low efficiency and waste of resources, but also has a negative impact on the sustainable development of forestry. Therefore, it is significant to develop an accurate, efficient, and energy-saving aerial precision seeding system using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology to meet the actual needs of forestry planting. In this study, a UAV precision afforestation system with a GUI, afforestation UAV, positioning system, and information interaction system were developed using related approaches such as electronic information technology. The UAV airborne seeding device added a control circuit and electronic chip to control the launching speed of the cylinder and seed loading speed, while the UAV flight speed is jointly controlled to accurately control the UAV seeding depth and seed spacing. The experimental results showed that the maximum seeding depth of the afforestation equipment was 6.7 cm. At the same seed launching speed, the smaller the content of sand and gravel in the soil, the higher the sowing qualification index, and the greater the sowing depth. The average absolute error of dynamic route RTK-automatic control seeding position accuracy was 7.6 cm, and the average error of static position hovering seeding was 7.7 cm. Resulting from the separate sown experiments of three crops, the sowing pitch angle of 75° gave the highest germination rate. The UAV seeding device has a low missing seed index and a qualified seeding index of more than 95% at 120 r/min seeding speed. The seeding device studied in this paper has a good seeding effect, can meet the requirements of afforestation, and provides a new technical means for managing forest and plant resources.

Keywords: UAV afforestation; precision seeding; air seeding; UAV GNSS RTK; seeder (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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