A comparative approach on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles kind of fixed-wing and rotative wing applied to the precision agriculture scenario

Abstract

To use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in precision agriculture is a very common and efficient practice, however,the vast majority of applications make use of Fixed-Wing AerialVehicles due to their autonomy that is several times higher thanthat of the Rotating-Wing Aerial Vehicles type. Meanwhile, as itsautonomy increases, so does its cost, and with the price of a singlefixed-wing vehicle it is possible to purchase a swarm of severalrotary-wing vehicles. The presente study presents a theoreticaland practical comparison to identify the most favorable scenariosfor the use of Fixed-Wing and Rotating-Wing type air vehicles,making a qualitative comparison with data obtained from thevehicles Datasheet and a quantitative comparison, divided intotwo moments: with theoretical data calculated based on dataretrieved from Datasheets, and with real data obtained fromflights. At the end of the work, it is concluded that for linearflights, for example the monitoring of roads or frontiers, the su-periority is held by fixed-wing vehicles. As for flights monitoringtwo-dimensional areas, where precision agriculture is commonlyapplied, the superiority is that of rotating-wings, which are ableto do the same work in a lesser time than fixed-wings, with theadvantages of having lower cost and greater flight dynamic, giventheir maneuverability, in addition to being easily applied on theautonomous flights, since the operations of takeoff and landingdo not need the human interaction, since they happen vertically.