THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AGRICULTURAL DRONES IN THE SYSTEM OF PRECISION AGRICULTURE

Abstract

The system of precision agriculture is a multifunctional system in which the operations of soil cultivation, fertilization, sowing, pesticide application and harvesting are combined into a single technological line. Drones and unmanned aerial vehicles have become an integral part of the precision agriculture system today. They are an important segment of the world market, which is rapidly developing in Ukraine as well. Thus, in today's realities, the search for new technologies to increase the yield of agricultural crops is a primary condition for the transition to a new level of management and survival of the agricultural production industry. The purpose of writing the article is to analyze the possibilities of using drones in crop production and a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of the implementation of this technology for mechanized spraying of crops in modern conditions. Methods. As research materials, there were scientific works on the history of the development of unmanned aerial vehicles for their use in agriculture. A comparative analysis of the technological process of spraying with the help of ground sprayers and agricultural drones was carried out, the advantages and disadvantages of using these means of mechanization of the technological process of crop spraying were revealed. The results. An analysis of the functional capabilities of agricultural drones and their technological capabilities was made. When comparing the technological process of spraying with the help of ground sprayers and agricultural drones, a number of advantages of unmanned aerial vehicles over self-propelled sprayers were revealed. In addition, the shortcomings of agricultural drones were analyzed, among which additional expensive equipment should be noted. For comparative analysis, the most popular models in Ukraine, both self-propelled sprayers and agricultural drones, were selected. The specific fuel consumption of both sprayers differs slightly – 0.44 l/ha for the New Holland sprayer and 0.5 l/ha for the Tecnoma sprayer. When comparing the specific energy consumption of both agricultural drones, the following results were obtained – 0.41 kW/ha in LOVOL LJ16L-606 and 0.31 kW/ha in DJI AGRAS T30. When comparing the specific energy consumption of self-propelled and unmanned units, the only possible denominator for their analysis is the hryvnia equivalent of these costs. So, for the New Holland GUARDIAN 275F self-propelled sprayer, this indicator is UAH 25.0/ha, for the Tecnoma LASER4240 self-propelled sprayer – UAH 22.0/ha, and for agricultural drones – UAH 7.6/ha and UAH 5.7/ha for LOVOL LJ16L-606 and DJI AGRAS T30 respectively. Conclusions. The use of agrodrones in agricultural production is not only a modern technology that provides the opportunity to apply technological materials during the entire growing season of plants, while saving the technological materials themselves and providing an opportunity for application not limited by the height of plants and soil moisture. Angrodrones are environmentally friendly and more mobile than self-propelled sprayers. Spraying with agricultural drones allows you to save on drugs, water, human and technical resources. Therefore, their use in agricultural production is quite expensive, but definitely a promising technological solution for the precision farming system.