Sky Rapier - Agrodrone AGRAS T16 by DJI

При появлении принципиально новой техники, такой как беспилотные летательные аппараты, у фанатов этих направлений появляется эйфория и стремление полностью заменить традиционное оборудование и технологии. Жизненные же реалии диктуют именно прагматические подходы к внедрению новинок, поскольку вместе с преимуществами, как правило, выявляются и недостатки. В полной мере этот подход справедлив и к drones. The possibility of replacing piloted planes for applying pesticides with unmanned aerial vehicles is extremely interesting for farmers. Let's try to understand the "pros" and "cons".

From experience

One of the leaders in this direction was Japan, which is characterized by fields with small areas where it is inappropriate to use manned aircraft, since the amount of reagents is several tens of liters. For this reason, already in the 90s, the Yamaha company released a serial model of a UAV for introducing reagents on a helicopter (copter) platform.

There were no suitable batteries for drones then, and an internal combustion engine was used. For control, a classic helicopter scheme with a propeller skew device was adopted. Such power precision power mechanics does not come cheap, and the price of the device was about 100 thousand dollars, which, of course, limited the mass of its implementation in crop production. But, nevertheless, such equipment showed that the UAV is capable of introducing tank mixtures with high accuracy and can become an indispensable assistant in a number of situations when traditional technologies are impractical or irrational.

Practice of using UAVs in the forest park zone

Practical acquaintance of the authors with UAVs for the introduction of protective equipment occurred in 2017, when an oak moth attacked a local landmark of one of the Kyiv parks - a centuries-old oak tree. The appearance of the giant suffered greatly, and the management wanted to correct the situation. In the city, for such purposes, a car with a lift was traditionally invited, but in this case the entrance was extremely difficult. An alternative was to attract industrial climbers, but presenting a person falling from a height of more than 20 meters, the management was saddened... By the way, in one of the nearby farms, a presentation was held for farmers of the AGRAS UAV family from the DJI company. The representatives of the company had little free time, and early in the morning the pilot placed the forest giant in a cloud of aerosol in a few minutes, and then, since the batteries were still charged and there was enough reagent, he also processed neighboring oak trees within a radius of several hundred meters for the company. The situation was resolved and planned to treat the trees purposefully in 2018, but ... the oak moth did not appear, apparently, it did not like such a "shower" very much.

But there are not so many situations with unique trees, and the mass introduction of such an inexpensive technique in crop production was considered questionable, although in China in 2019, about 40,000 AGRAS UAVs were used in the agricultural sector. But there is a state program to support the introduction of drones in agricultural practices, and these technologies are still in the initiative status.

There were many devices in the AGRAS family, such as the MG-1 Launched, MG-1S, MG-1P and others, the most modern in 2019, the T16, was designed taking into account the already accumulated experience.

Competitiveness in comparison with traditional equipment

Direct comparison of AGRAS T16 with groundequipment for application of tank mixtures is not quite correct, since it able to effectively complement the ego precisely intechnologies of precision agriculture. The price of the device, declared by Drone.ua, is 14,999 euros + 39,000 hryvnias for the battery, which is comparable to the cost of ground equipment. But the battery for this device requires about 400 charge/discharge cycles and can process up to 2 hectares in one flight. That is, only after the depreciation of the battery, for 39 thousand it is possible to process only 800 hectares, which cannot be called an outstanding result, BUT...

Like a rapier instead of a sword

In our opinion, AGRAS T16 is quite worthy of the name "Heavenly rapier", since it is quite comparable in nature of use with this specific weapon.

The rapier - a cold weapon with a bayonet-shaped blade - became a logical development of the sword, when warriors were dressed in armor, which became extremely difficult to cut through. It was possible to go the traditional way of increasing the power, for example, to reanimate a large two-handed sword, but where to recruit a mass of soldiers capable of working with it? Then go the other way - no matter how hard you are, there will still be vulnerable places that can be pierced with a thin blade (we all remember Achilles' heel from the myth). With the help of a rapier, it was possible, without using brute force, due to dexterity and dexterity to effectively disable the enemy.

By analogy with fencing, in plant growing, when detecting in the early stages the places from which pests spread, AGRAS T16 is able to apply chemical protection agents with high precision. For this purpose, the drone underwent a number of fundamental design changes compared to its predecessors. When using standard ground-based equipment for applying side mixes, the wind can blow the aerosol cloud to neighboring areas. In copter UAVs, the screws press the drops directly to the plants, which makes processing fundamentally more efficient. In order to increase the accuracy of application, DJI engineers abandoned the standard hexacopter propeller rotation scheme. The result turned out to be very worthy.

Quality of plant processing

At the AGRAS T16 presentation in Kyiv on September 17, 2019, Drone.ua held a practical demonstration. Pay attention to the spots of wet asphalt resulting from spraying. At a flight height of 3-4 meters, the area of ​​"processed" areas when the device hovers is quite comparable to its dimensions, which indicates high accuracy and selectivity.

Innovative scheme placement of screws additionally contributes to the compactness of the device. Thanks to this, 1-2 people will be able to handle it easily, and a passenger car is also suitable for transportation.

Safety of personnel work. Another important parameter when applying pesticides is their high toxicity. Safety equipment requires the use of special respirators, insulating overalls, etc. The actual question is how comfortable and safe it is for a person, and how effective is such treatment?

Mobility and selectivity

For decades, the processing of plants in the fields is carried out mechanized, with the help of aggregates and vehicles. They move along technological tracks, the direction of which is not taken into account by crop pests. Accordingly, you can forget about optimal routes. The UAV does not have such limitations, and it will be able to easily and safely process the necessary areas of the field, providing the farm with operational efficiency and mobility.

Качество обработки растения

The nature and quality of the plant coating is very important when processing plants with chemical and other means. And here agrodrones have superiority. The size of the drops of the applied solution is measured in microns, the density of the coating is high. When passing over the field at a height of several meters, air currents blow the entire plant, leaving no safe places for pests. The plant seems to be enveloped in fog from the introduced solution. Such processing allows you to dramatically reduce the consumption of the working solution, the concentration of the active substance in the reagent and, accordingly, the toxic load on the plant and the environment. In addition, modern means of protection are very expensive, which is important.

Universality

On the Ukrainian market, AGRAS T16 was presented as a UAV for applyingplant protection products, but, in our opinion, this device has the potential for wider application.

Constructively, AGRAS T16 is adapted for use at night - along with headlights, the drone is equipped with a lidar for automatic avoidance of obstacles in flight.

Such a decision is not accidental, it allows taking into account the physiology of plants. Gas exchange and transpiration of the plant are carried out through the stomata, which are usually concentrated on the LOWER part of the leaf and are more active precisely at NIGHT. Thus, AGRAS T16 has high prospects for foliar feeding, etc.

Vyvody

In a word, despite the high price of the product and operating costs, AGRAS T16 is quite capable of occupying its niche on in the market If you take into account all the factors of mobility, accuracy, consumption of reagents, quality of processing, working conditions of personnel, etc., it can already be quite profitable.

For example, in China in 9 months of 2019, DJI drones of the Agras family processed about 13 million hectares. They know how to count money there, and the profitability of innovation is present.

There is every reason to assume that in the foreseeable future new technologies, such as drones, will change the very ideology of agricultural production, increasing profitability, and change the face of the countryside, minimizing heavy, monotonous, often dangerous physical labor.