Numerical Investigation of Hexacopter Downwash Airflow Field at Various Flight Speeds and Heights for Agricultural Spraying Operation. /
Muhammad Yawar Abbas
- 64p. ; Soft Copy 30cm.
Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as agricultural spraying drones have now become an integral part of the modern agricultural system. They are being used for spraying on the crops to protect the plants from different types of pests. When spray is distributed on the crops, it flows away from the target because of the wind field being created around the UAV. The downwash effect produced by the UAV significantly influences the spray deposition on crops. The downwash airfield generated by the hexacopter brings droplets to the crops, increasing the droplets’ deposition on the crops. Lattice Boltzmann Method was applied using CFD package XFlow to study the downwash field created by the hexacopter. The primary focus of the research is the downwash airflow field generated by the hexacopter that affects the motion distribution of droplets released from the sprayer at different flight speeds and altitudes. Previous research is limited to downwash effects on a drone with a wheelbase of 1000 mm. In this study, the downwash effect on a hexacopter drone with a spraying capacity of 30L and a wheelbase of 1900 mm is studied. We compared the results of our larger-wheelbase UAV with existing benchmarks. The UAV showed enhanced performance, achieving coverage and penetrable areas approximately double those of the benchmark. Based upon the results, the optimum flight height and flight velocity for spraying operation are 3 m and 4 ms-1 respectively under the condition of coverage and penetrable area.