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<p>Precision herbicide spraying plays a vital role in precision agriculture by ensuring targeted application on weeds while maintaining consistent spray quality and pressure. Modern spraying systems regulate pressure and flow rates using either individual actuators, such as pumps and proportional control valves (PCVs), or a combination of both. However, achieving stable pressure regulation and uniform application requires effective tuning of Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers for these actuators. The objective of this research was to design, implement, and evaluate a PI-based control system for a robotic smart sprayer platform equipped with 16 nozzles. The proposed system simultaneously modulates the duty cycles of both the pumps and the PCV to maintain a set pressure, aiming to achieve fast response, enhanced stability, and greater robustness to noise and disturbances. The system’s performance was experimentally evaluated under varying spray loads and activation durations to simulate different weed densities and field conditions. To characterize dynamic behavior, one, four, eight, twelve, and all sixteen nozzles were activated for durations of 100 ms, 250 ms, and 500 ms, while varying the proportional gain (Kp) of the pump controller. The effects of nozzle count, activation time, and control gain on system performance were analyzed. Under idle conditions (no nozzles activated), the pump duty cycle remained below 1%, and even at maximum load (sixteen nozzles for 100 ms), the duty cycle stayed under 2%, demonstrating efficient load handling. The experimentally derived PI constants were then used to fine-tune the system, first by individually tuning the pump and PCV controllers, followed by their integration. The final control configuration achieved a settling time of 0.18&#xa0;s and an overshoot of 15.35% in response to a step input, along with a high phase margin indicating strong system stability. The results validate that a well-tuned PI control strategy, utilizing both actuators in coordination, can reliably maintain target pressure with rapid and stable response, making it suitable for real-time smart spraying applications.</p>

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Design and evaluation of a PI-controlled robotic smart sprayer for precision herbicide applications with multi-nozzle integration

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年12月5日

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  • Vinay Vijayakumar,
  • Antonio de Oliveira Costa Neto,
  • Yiannis Ampatzidis,
  • John Schueller,
  • Won Suk Lee,
  • Tom Burks

摘要

Precision herbicide spraying plays a vital role in precision agriculture by ensuring targeted application on weeds while maintaining consistent spray quality and pressure. Modern spraying systems regulate pressure and flow rates using either individual actuators, such as pumps and proportional control valves (PCVs), or a combination of both. However, achieving stable pressure regulation and uniform application requires effective tuning of Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers for these actuators. The objective of this research was to design, implement, and evaluate a PI-based control system for a robotic smart sprayer platform equipped with 16 nozzles. The proposed system simultaneously modulates the duty cycles of both the pumps and the PCV to maintain a set pressure, aiming to achieve fast response, enhanced stability, and greater robustness to noise and disturbances. The system’s performance was experimentally evaluated under varying spray loads and activation durations to simulate different weed densities and field conditions. To characterize dynamic behavior, one, four, eight, twelve, and all sixteen nozzles were activated for durations of 100 ms, 250 ms, and 500 ms, while varying the proportional gain (Kp) of the pump controller. The effects of nozzle count, activation time, and control gain on system performance were analyzed. Under idle conditions (no nozzles activated), the pump duty cycle remained below 1%, and even at maximum load (sixteen nozzles for 100 ms), the duty cycle stayed under 2%, demonstrating efficient load handling. The experimentally derived PI constants were then used to fine-tune the system, first by individually tuning the pump and PCV controllers, followed by their integration. The final control configuration achieved a settling time of 0.18 s and an overshoot of 15.35% in response to a step input, along with a high phase margin indicating strong system stability. The results validate that a well-tuned PI control strategy, utilizing both actuators in coordination, can reliably maintain target pressure with rapid and stable response, making it suitable for real-time smart spraying applications.