DESIGN AND EXPERIMENT OF SPRAY BOOM INCLINATION CONTROL SYSTEM

Abstract

During field operations of the spray boom sprayer, the distance between the ends of the spray boom and the height of the crop canopy affects the uniformity of spraying, requiring operators to manually adjust the spray boom to be parallel to the crop canopy, which impacts operational efficiency. This study presents the design of a boom tilt control system, consisting of a main control node, distance measurement node, vehicle tilt detection node, and spray boom tilt control node. The bus communication protocol for the spray boom tilt control system is defined according to the ISO11783 standard, and a serial communication network is designed, along with the development of a real-time dynamic monitoring interface for the spray boom. The system automatically monitors the height of the boom and the tilt of the vehicle, makes decisions based on the detection information, controls the electric actuator, and adjusts the tilt of the boom. Leveraging the advantages of fast computing speed and user-friendly human-machine interface of the PC, as well as the high cost-effectiveness and small size of the microcontroller, and the multi-master-slave structure of the CAN bus, this system can complete data acquisition, processing, and other functions required for spray boom tilt control, achieving automatic adjustment of spray boom tilt. This enhances spray uniformity and operational efficiency of the sprayer, while reducing the workload of operators.