Development of a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) for Agricultural Use (Part I)

Abstract

In precision agriculture, the use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) has increased significantly, due to the advantage of obtaining crop information from different sensors. This has generated the need for aircraft capable of performing autonomous and georeferenced flights to obtain the desired information with precision. With this purpose, a quadcopter type RPAS was designed and built with a system that allows autonomous and stable flights to obtain georeferenced images, through the instrumentation of a RGB sensor (Sony IMX117) and a GPS. For the design of the RPAS, weight, flight time, flight height, payload and control system were considered as requirements. With the design parameters, a RPAS was built, equipped with a Pixhawk controller with GPS, 1400kv race star engines, eight-inch propellers (8045) and 30A ESC. A RPAS was designed and built, weighing less than 2 kg and the RPAS was drawn in 3D, using a "CAD" system, which allowed the center of mass and stresses caused by the weight of the vehicle to be modeled, obtaining a safety factor of 7.95 with the Von Mises Stress.