TY - JOUR
T1 - The development of autonomous unmanned aircraft systems for mosquito control
AU - Williams, Gregory M.
AU - Wang, Yi
AU - Suman, Devi S.
AU - Unlu, Isik
AU - Gaugler, Randy
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch project accession number 1020755 through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Hatch project NJ08530, the Rutgers Center for Unmanned Aircraft and the Northeastern Mosquito Control Association's McColgan Grant-in-Aid. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2020 Williams et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - We constructed an electric multi-rotor autonomous unmanned aerial system (UAS) to perform mosquito control activities. The UAS can be equipped with any of four modules for spraying larvicides, dropping larvicide tablets, spreading larvicide granules, and ultra-low volume spraying of adulticides. The larvicide module sprayed 124 μm drops at 591 mL/min over a 14 m swath for a total application rate of 1.6 L/ha. The tablet module was able to repeatedly deliver 40-gram larvicide tablets within 1.1 m of the target site. The granular spreader covered a 6 m swath and treated 0.76 ha in 13 min at an average rate of 1.8 kg/ha. The adulticide module produced 16 μm drops with an average deposition of 2.6 drops/mm2. UAS pesticide applications were made at rates prescribed for conventional aircraft, limited only by the payload capacity and flight time. Despite those limitations, this system can deliver pesticides with much greater precision than conventional aircraft, potentially reducing pesticide use. In smaller, congested environments or in programs with limited resources, UAS may be a preferable alternative to conventional aircraft.
AB - We constructed an electric multi-rotor autonomous unmanned aerial system (UAS) to perform mosquito control activities. The UAS can be equipped with any of four modules for spraying larvicides, dropping larvicide tablets, spreading larvicide granules, and ultra-low volume spraying of adulticides. The larvicide module sprayed 124 μm drops at 591 mL/min over a 14 m swath for a total application rate of 1.6 L/ha. The tablet module was able to repeatedly deliver 40-gram larvicide tablets within 1.1 m of the target site. The granular spreader covered a 6 m swath and treated 0.76 ha in 13 min at an average rate of 1.8 kg/ha. The adulticide module produced 16 μm drops with an average deposition of 2.6 drops/mm2. UAS pesticide applications were made at rates prescribed for conventional aircraft, limited only by the payload capacity and flight time. Despite those limitations, this system can deliver pesticides with much greater precision than conventional aircraft, potentially reducing pesticide use. In smaller, congested environments or in programs with limited resources, UAS may be a preferable alternative to conventional aircraft.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0235548
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0235548
M3 - Article
C2 - 32946475
AN - SCOPUS:85091324415
VL - 15
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 9 September
M1 - e0235548
ER -