System and Method for Locally Precise Application of Solids and Liquids and Mixtures Thereof in Agriculture and Forestry

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system for locally precise application of substances to useful areas of farmland and woodland and a corresponding method. The system comprises at least one multiple rotary wing aircraft, which contains at least one electronic control device for controlling the flight movements, which steers the multiple rotary-wing aircraft autonomously on predefined flight paths. The electronic control device contains at least one processing unit, at least one receiver for signals of a global satellite navigation system for position determining and an inertial measurement unit for detecting movement data of the multiple rotary-wing aircraft. The processing unit calculates the data of the receiver according to the method of real-time kinematics with the data of a base station and with the measured data of the inertial measurement unit for improving the accuracy of the position measurement data so that the electronic control device can sufficiently accurately steer the multiple rotary-wing aircraft to apply substances to farmlands.

Claims

1. A method for locally precise application of solids and liquids and mixtures thereof in agriculture and forestry, which permits sufficiently precise positioning for processing connecting tracks and/or for coordinate-controlled individual plant treatment, said method comprising the steps of: providing at least one multiple rotary-wing aircraft-having inertial sensors and a receiver for receiving signals from a global satellite navigation system attached thereto; positioning said aircraft precisely by means of position determination by combining measured values from said inertial sensors and measured values from said receiver for signals from global satellite navigation systems, using real-time kinematics; and using said aircraft to apply said solids, liquid or mixtures to at least one plant.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said receiver used is a single-frequency receiver.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said inertial sensors used are sensors with which the linear acceleration in three linearly independent spatial directions and the rotational speeds about three linearly independent axes of rotation are determined.

4. The system and method as claimed in claim 1, including the additional step of providing at least one sensor for collecting measured data from magnetic field and/or ultrasound and/or air pressure; are combined and used to further improve the position determination.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the step of using the data from a global satellite navigation system to correct measuring errors of said inertial sensors, wherein this data can be both pure position information and also measured values such as pseudo length, carrier phase and Doppler shift, and also the inertial navigation is used to improve the solution finding of the real-time kinematics.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, further including the step of using at least one Kalman filter to combine the data from the satellite navigation and the data from the inertial navigation.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, further including the step of providing an electronic processing unit on said aircraft which carries out at least part of the data processing steps.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the step of operating said multiple rotary-wing aircraft to autonomously fly predefined paths in space at predefined speeds.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, further including the step of modifying a flight path for said aircraft on the basis of distance measurements to the ground or to the plant population.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said substance to be applied is plant protection agent or pest control agent or fertilizer or seed or a mixture thereof.

11. The method as claimed in claim 1, further including the step of automatically feeding power, operating substances and substances to be applied to the multiple rotary-wing aircraft and/or replaced.

Description

[0012] In an embodiment according to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the multiple rotary-wing aircraft 1 has eight individually electrically driven rotors 2, which are fixed to a rod assembly 3. In the center of the rod assembly, the following are fitted on a mounting surface 4 [0013] a storage container 5 for substances to be applied, [0014] an electronic control device 6, [0015] a delivery unit 7 for substances to be applied, for example a pump, accumulators 8 for supplying power to the rotary drives 9, the electronic control device 6 and the pump 7, [0016] distribution lines 10 and nozzles 11 for the substances to be applied, and landing gear 12.

[0017] In an embodiment according to FIG. 3, the electronic control device 6 contains [0018] a control unit 13 for generating control commands for the multiple rotary-wing aircraft, [0019] a receiver 14 with antenna 15 for signals from global satellite navigation systems, [0020] an inertial measuring unit 16 for acquiring movement data of the multiple rotary-wing aircraft, and [0021] a processing unit 17 for combining the satellite signals and the movement data, said processing unit receiving the data required to calculate the real-time kinematics from a base station 18 via radio 19.

[0022] In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a Kalman filter combines the measured values from the inertial sensors and the raw data [0023] pseudo length, [0024] carrier phase, [0025] Doppler shift
from a GNSS receiver and a base station to form a precise and reliable position. As a result, the drift of the inertial sensors is compensated and, likewise, the range of the possible solutions of the integer ambiguity in the position determination in accordance with the real-time kinematics method is highly restricted.