Drone Crop Spraying Control Using Pest Location Detection

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Current methods for controlling moving vehicles, such as drones, in agriculture spray chemicals over entire farmlands, including both affected and unaffected crops, leading to inefficiency.

Innovation Solution

A method executed on a terminal mounted on the moving vehicle, which includes image acquisition, analysis, pest detection, location information acquisition, and controlled spraying of disinfectants based on pest location, type, and growth situation, optimizing chemical application.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If chemical spraying is performed over the whole farmland, then disease-free and pest-free crops are also treated, but this results in inefficient chemical usage and waste

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecrop protection effectivenessVSAvoidchemical waste
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The system transitions from uniform farmland spraying to localized targeted spraying by detecting pest locations through image analysis and controlling the moving vehicle to spray only at specific coordinates where pests are detected, thereby applying chemical treatment only where needed rather than across the entire field

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system extracts and isolates the specific treatment locations from the entire farmland by using image acquisition and analysis units to identify pest positions, then separates the spraying action to occur only at these extracted location coordinates, leaving unaffected areas untreated

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

2Measurement precision

If image analysis and pest detection systems are added to the moving vehicle, then precise targeted spraying is enabled, but the device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepest location detection accuracyVSAvoidsystem structure complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The terminal device mounted on the moving vehicle performs multiple functions including image acquisition, image analysis, pest detection, location information acquisition, and moving vehicle control, allowing a single integrated system to handle all tasks rather than requiring separate dedicated devices for each function

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The system combines the image processing unit, pest detection algorithms, location tracking, and vehicle control systems into an integrated terminal device that operates as a unified control system, merging multiple functional components into a single coordinated unit

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentEP3479691B1Mobile body control application and mobile body control method
Publication Date: 2024.04.24 OPTIM
  • EP3479691B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3479691B1 patent drawingFigure 2~3
  • EP3479691B1 patent drawingFigure 4

AI summary

The present invention is to provide an application and a method for controlling a moving vehicle that are capable to efficiently spray a chemical. The application for controlling a moving vehicle executed on an information terminal 100 mounted on the moving vehicle 10 acquires an image taken by the information terminal 100 in flight, analyzes the acquired image, detects a pest attached to a crop based on the result of the image analysis, acquires location information of the crop to which the detected pest is attached, and controls the moving vehicle 10 to spray a disinfestant based on the acquired location information.