Low Altitude and Multiple Helicopter Formation in Precision Aerial Agriculture

Abstract.  Use aircraft in precision aerial application is saving time, energy, not affected by terrain restriction. Assignments are good quality and save pesticide and fertilizer etc. Unmanned aircraft has low cost, can be a low-altitude work and other advantages. Information detection and pesticide spraying of aircraft have different requirements; single aircraft is difficult to effectively accomplish various tasks at the same time. This paper presents a low altitude multi-plane formation composed of various functional models refined flying in formation. Multiple axis aircraft which has high stability is responsible for completing information detection. High power aircraft which can carry more loads is responsible for spray. The spray values of follow-up aircraft were controlled by detected information that analyzed by leading aircraft dynamically. All the work can be complete at same time. It improved the operating efficiency and accuracy greatly. Furthermore, flight functions matching modular can adapt to a wider range of operating adaptability. The characteristic of each flight function modular and the control principle of whole flight formation were studied.