Mechatronics Design and Flight Simulation of Hexacopter Aerial Robot Coupled with Visual Detection System for Crop Diseases

The National Institute of Statistics and Informatics - INEI in the year 2021 indicated that the agricultural sector experienced a growth of 6.21%, with alfalfa production being one of the main drivers with 10.1%, positioning Peru as one of the countries with the highest growth in the region. In 2022, an exhaustive investigation was carried out in the Department of Moquegua, evidencing a deficiency in the agricultural sector in terms of the availability of technological tools and resources for the execution of innovative projects. In response to this, a hexacopter drone was designed and implemented using SolidWorks software and equipped with an artificial vision system. A detailed mechanical analysis was carried out to evaluate the materials used, carbon fiber, reaching a total mass of 08 kg for efficient flight. An electrical analysis was carried out to determine the power required by the drone, where, Tarot 4114/320KV motors, Hobbywing FlyFun variators, and a 10000 mAh LiPo battery that allows a flight autonomy of 25 minutes were used. It uses an Ardupilot APM 2.8 flight controller for programming the drone's flight paths using the Mission Planner software, likewise, Google Colab and Python were used for training neural networks and NVIDIA Jetson Nano for integrated processing applications of images, as well as, the KyAo application was implemented for the registration of the coordinates of the crops. By the end of 2023, the increased production of alfalfa will be validated through the early detection of pests and diseases in the Rinconada sector of the Moquegua Province in Peru with the participation of the farming community.