Design and testing of a self-propelled air-blowing greenhouse sprayer

Abstract.

Greenhouse crops are grown in a closed microclimate of high temperature and humidity, which is conducive for breeding pests and diseases. In such an environment, the application of pesticides can also harm human health. In order to avoid damage to the human body and improve the utilization rate of pesticides, we designed a self-propelled automatic greenhouse-targeted spraying robot. This robot has four components: an automatic targeting mechanism, walking platform, gear oscillation mechanism, and control system. As different greenhouse crops have different growth periods, they require different spray dosages. The gear oscillation mechanism of the robot adjusts the horizontal spray time and spray elevation angle according to the height of the crops in order to decrease the pesticide off-target rate and increase the pesticide attachment rate. As greenhouse crops are densely planted, the robot uses air-assisted spraying. The robot uses magnetic sensors to detect the target location for spraying. The pesticide robot was tested for the atomization and effective attachment rate in greenhouses. The pesticide attachment rates on the top and bottom surfaces of tomato leaves were 75.83% and 58.33%, respectively.