Measurement of Spray Drift with a Specifically Designed Lidar System

Abstract

Field measurements of spray drift are usually carried out by passive collectors and tracers. However, these methods are labour- and time-intensive and only provide point- and time-integrated measurements. Unlike these methods, the light detection and ranging (lidar) technique allows real-time measurements, obtaining information with temporal and spatial resolution. Recently, the authors have developed the first eye-safe lidar system specifically designed for spray drift monitoring. This prototype is based on a 1534 nm erbium-doped glass laser and an 80 mm diameter telescope, has scanning capability, and is easily transportable. This paper presents the results of the first experimental campaign carried out with this instrument. High coefficients of determination (R2 > 0.85) were observed by comparing lidar measurements of the spray drift with those obtained by horizontal collectors. Furthermore, the lidar system allowed an assessment of the drift reduction potential (DRP) when comparing low-drift nozzles with standard ones, resulting in a DRP of 57% (preliminary result) for the tested nozzles. The lidar system was also used for monitoring the evolution of the spray flux over the canopy and to generate 2-D images of these plumes. The developed instrument is an advantageous alternative to passive collectors and opens the possibility of new methods for field measurement of spray drift.

Sistema LiDAR para evaluar la deriva. Medidas con diferentes tipos y calibres de boquilla

“…Además, se trata de un instrumento portátil, ocularmente seguro y que puede ser operado por un único usuario. Se han comparado las medidas de deriva utilizando el sistema LiDAR con las realizadas mediante métodos directos e indirectos [10,11], obteniéndose elevadas correlaciones en ambos casos.…”

Polarization Lidar Detection of Agricultural Aerosol Emissions

“…Lidar technology has also been applied in spray drift studies to assess the dynamics of aerially released pesticides [13][14][15], to study the influence of atmospheric stability over spray dispersal [16,17], and to quantify the spray plume concentration [18]. High correlations between lidar and collector measurements of spray drift have been obtained in recent studies [19][20][21]. Lidar systems are also a suitable tool to validate spray-transport models [22] and dust plume dispersal models of agriculture field operations [23,24].…”

Sistema de mensuração baseado em tecnologia LiDAR para a estimativa de parâmetros de produção de cana-de-açúcar

“…Na agricultura os sensores a laser são embarcados em plataformas terrestres ou aéreas para a quantificação de biomassa de plantas (ANDÚJAR et al, 2016;LI et al, 2014;SELBECK et al, 2010), elaboração de modelos tridimensionais de dossel de culturas (COLAÇO et al, 2015;SILVA et al, 2016), mensuração de deriva em pulverização de pesticidas (GREGORIO et al, 2016), aplicação localizada de insumos (GIL et al, 2014) e detecção de obstáculos para veículos autônomos (PERIU et al, 2013), dentre outros.…”