Wind Vortex Target Control of a Plant Protection UAV Based on a Rice Wind Vortex–Flight Parameter Model

The strong airflow beneath a rotary drone generates a wind vortex within the rice canopy; precise control of the wind vortex distance and wind vortex area can improve pesticide utilization efficiency. This paper calculates the flight parameter curve based on the wind vortex target from the wind vortex target parameter control model of the four-rotor plant protection drone, designs a flight control system using a Cube Orange flight controller and a Jetson AGX Xavier onboard computer, and implements flight parameter control using both PID control and fuzzy control algorithms. Experimental results indicate that when using PID control and fuzzy control, the average deviation values of UAV flight altitude and speed are 0.08 m, 0.08 m/s, 0.06 m, and 0.08 m/s, respectively. When using PID control, the average distance and area errors of the target downwind and upwind are 0.17 m and 0.37 m2 and 0.20 m and 0.46 m2, respectively. The corresponding values for fuzzy control are 0.12 m, 0.38 m2, 0.09 m, and 0.31 m2. In the twelve voyage experiments, the target parameter variance using fuzzy control was relatively smaller for eight voyages compared to PID control, which had a smaller variance for four voyages. On the whole, the effect of fuzzy control is superior. The wind vortex control method proposed in this paper can effectively enable precise pesticide spraying by drones. This has significant implications for reducing agricultural production costs and safeguarding the natural environment.