The Team
Welcome! We are team 2 "MACH 4", Eric B. Rodriguez Jr, Roberto Sanchez, Sergio Pena, and Juan Casanova. This is a continuation of the tree drone project from the Academic Year 2022. We are tasked with making the aerial vehicle that will carry the heavy payload and carry out the mission. Our project will help farmers decrease cost in machinery and help automate the process allowing them to tend to other things on their fields. The flight mission will be seed a mid-sized farm which will is upwards of about 1500 acres.
The problem we identified is that as the population of the earth increases, the more land is required to accommodate the expansion. Effectively planting of seeds in a variety of soils, environments, and terrains make it difficult or not as effective by traditional methods. The significant impact of quality of fossil fuels equipment such as tractors use a large quantity of fuels that produce carbon emissions detrimental to the quality of air supply. Seeding varies in the application required, whether it is for agriculture in plowed fields or reforesting harvested timber areas. The improvements to the current method would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of seeding.
The initial start-up cost of equipment makes it hard for farmers to reach a return on investment in a relatively short amount of time. Most of the time farmers don’t see a return on investment until 5 to 6 years after they purchase the equipment. This is tough because over time the components will wear and by the time the farmer reaches a return, the machine breaks down and requires deep maintenance. Often, the equipment they purchase is used and is still priced heavily for the wear the equipment has. Below is an example of a recent part being sold with some oxidation showing in some of the rotating components.
From the figure above, the cost for one piece of equipment is steep. This is equipment that is considered for large-scale farms. The farmer must have a fully functional tractor that can handle the load and PTO capabilities. This equipment can provide a high yield in crops after the harvest, but the return on investment (ROI) won’t be seen for a couple of years. Our goal with the UAV is to dramatically cut the costs of producing ROI quicker for the farmer and help the farmer focus more on the macro scale of the farm while the UAV does the microprocess of seeding the land.
Some of the preliminary research that has been done on the project involves knowing what is needed to lift the desired payload off the ground, carry and dispense the payload for a sustained amount of flight time. Another part of the problem is figuring out how to efficiently insert seeds and how to place them accurately in the intended depth and location for maximum germination. UAVs-Unmanned arial vehicles developed into its maturity in the 1980s and 1990s as U.S. military had successful missions over hostile environments that did not jeopardize the life of pilots. The remote operations of these vehicles offered a fast real time battlefield advantage over their enemies. This led to larger and more sophisticated UAVs that had a longer range, and a heavy complicated payload for multiple mission types. Current long-range UAVs have flight times that range from 40 hours to 336 hours.
Payloads limitations are deepened on thrust produced by the engine(s) to ensure that sufficient power is allotted to lift the vehicle off the surface. A factor of safety at 1.5 with a designated trust requirement this F=Ma was the foundation of the calculations required. With a maximum overall weight of 55lbs for the vehicle in order to meet the vehicle regulations in the FAR Part 107. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have regulations set for recreational or commercial drone piloting.
Seed germination- according to the Oxford Languages dictionary germination is the development of a plant from a seed or spore after a period of dormancy. When the seed has it proper depth within the soil, with the correct moister level for seed to germinate. The goal for this is to find the appropriate depth to inject the seed pods into the different soil types for its appropriate germination.
Introducing our revolutionary seeding drone - the future of precision agriculture. Our drone is equipped with cutting-edge technology that allows it to fly over fields and distribute seeds with incredible accuracy and efficiency. This means that farmers can save time and money while achieving higher crop yields. Our drone is also eco-friendly, reducing the need for heavy machinery and harmful chemicals. With our seeding drone, farmers can take their agriculture to the next level and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Using drones to plant trees and enhance agriculture is a simple idea with a clearly ethical goal. However, it requires rigorous research and engineering to optimize an aeronautical vehicle with the intent of transporting a 60-pound payload for dispersing seeds at an extremely high rate while operating autonomously. After discussing the problems that inspired this project and numerous preliminary ideas, the team developed multiple designs to analyze and select which would be most efficient. Here were some design challenges Team 2 has encountered thus far while bringing this idea to reality:
To prototype early and often is vital for any project to be successful. By planning prototyping early and often will allow any team or project to identify problems with their design and, formulate a solution(s) to overcome any obstacles that may be progress stoppers. Our team’s plan to prototype early and as often as possible. This project will be designed from no previous design and will have a simple model made from popsicle sticks, known as our “Staples” model. This is a very generic, rough design as our model evolves with ideas. The Home Depot model will be a bit more defined with 3–6-volt motors (6) and an Arduino circuit for controls and lights. Upon construction of the center fuselage, careful consideration will be taken to cut the 60 deg angles to the hexa-copper design. A two-tear level design was used for housing the electronics such as global positioning system (GPS), Electronic Speed Controller (ESC), light detection and ranging (LiDAR), accelerometer and more. The landing gear legs are outside the radius of the fuselage for stability but with current design may have a modification upon testing and the finite element analysis. This will also be critical with the arms (6) with the lifting force applied on the frame and hinges. The hopper is placed in the center of the fuselage with a top access door for poring seeds to inject into any soil type of field. The feeding systems is a strait non-jamming tube that allows the seeds to flow into the pneumatic system for proper delivery. The pneumatic system has four external compressed air tanks that are charged with linear actuators. The projectile system will utilize a paintball gun system that will chamber a seed(s) and use enough velocity for the seed to properly embed into the soil for appropriate germination. An axillary power unit to maintain the appropriate power throughout it flight mission.
This section will be filled out at the end of Senior Design II. Coming Fall 2023!
Our project is a proof of concept that requires further development, these are some of the pending items:
The first technical problem of the project was selecting the frame which will house all the necessary components to fly, carry the payload, and energize the aircraft. With this in mind, we chose three standard shapes which would limit the complexity of the aircraft and cut down on build time: Square, Hexagon, and an Octagon. The objective was to be symmetrical for flight stability. Each of the three frames were constructed from 1” 6061 – T6 Aluminum square tubing with a wall thickness of 0.065” , with the exception of the landing legs of the octagonal frame, which were at 0.75” with a 0.062” thickness. Alternatively, aluminum round tubing would be considered as the cost of the round tubing is less than that of the square tubing. However, mounting brackets will have to be added to the assembly to hold the tubes in place. In the designs, several landing gear options were put together and are reconfigurable between all the three different frames. Each of the three frames had their pros and cons which we will dive into in the sections below where our optimal design choice will be discussed at the end of this section. Each frame has a foldable arm design to allow for easier storage as each structure is roughly 6 feet in diameter. Each frame is 2 ft. in diameter and each arm is 2 ft. in length.
The frame is a very simple square design involving 1” Aluminum square tubing. The frame pieces and the landing legs are welded together using the Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) method, also known as TIG. The arms are held by brackets which allow them to be folded upward or removed for ease of storage. The total diameter of the drone is roughly 6 feet. The minimum aluminum required for the frame is 42 feet. The total weight of the frame is 11.76 lbs.
The frame shown in Figure 4 is the middle ground between the three designs we have considered. This has the best of both worlds in terms of volume, cost, and weight. This design is also approximately 6 ft in diameter. The total amount of aluminum used in this design is about 44 ft of 1” 6061 T6 Aluminum. The calculated weight of the frame is 13.46 lbs.
The octagonal shape is probably the most aesthetic looking drone and provides better capability of heavy lift than the other two. However, adding more motors to the drone can increase energy consumption and increase cost dramatically in parts. Each motor will need a controller to vary the duty cycle of the motor as desired. This would be the optimal choice if the cost of the drone was not an issue. This drone also sits roughly at 6 ft. in diameter. The total amount of aluminum used for this frame is 63 ft. of 1” aluminum square tubing and 12 ft. of 0.75” aluminum square tubing. The calculated weight of the frame is 20.95 lbs.
During the summer, our team chose to redesign our preliminary design and downscale the drone to make it easier to test with and relatively cheaper. This change caused a whole new set of calculations to be done.
These preliminary calculations are important because they tell us what components we have to consider purchasing to make the drone fly. These components include batteries, motors, propellers, frame size, flight management units, ESCs, RC hardware, and GPS hardware.
After the calculations were made, the final concept came to life. This concept is close to about half the size of the originally intended design.
Over the summer the seed dispensing device was also designed. This is a simple hopper design with a cam and follower that actuates a one way check valve with a piston and a ball bearing. The cam and follower are actuated using a stepper motor with a 5:1 gear reduction and powered through a stepper driver.
Throughout the semester our team worked hard to produce our original design into reality so that we can conduct the proper testing to get it working together and fine tune.
Here we showcase our maiden flight of our research vehicle.
We would like to thank and acknowledge the Teaching Crew: Dr. N Vargas, Mr. G. Potter, and Dr. I. Choutapalli. The work done here couldn't be done without the guidance of our professors and staff.
In hindsight, the product is almost good to be flyable, the real engineering of this drone/seeder combo comes into the fine tuning of all the parameters which will be continued into research in the master's program.
These are some of the sketches that determined the initial construction of the aerial vehicle.
