Design and Fabrication of Tree Plantation Drone
Large area across the world needs to be reforested for healthy environment, and that seems to be a daunting task. Every year millions of trees are planted worldwide but that traditional method is slow and expensive. This problem can be easily handled using drones that are many times faster than trad
2025-06-28 16:31:40 - Adil Khan
Design and Fabrication of Tree Plantation Drone
Project Area of Specialization RoboticsProject SummaryLarge area across the world needs to be reforested for healthy environment, and that seems to be a daunting task. Every year millions of trees are planted worldwide but that traditional method is slow and expensive. This problem can be easily handled using drones that are many times faster than traditional tree plantation process.
This project will endeavor to design and build a drone that can plant the encapsulated seedlings from the air over selected spots in the required terrain area, also to design seedpods through biodegradable material and shooting mechanism for them.
The drone has the potential to fly 9 to 10 feet above the land while shooting seedlings over selected points through google map and GPS/IMU communication. Drone would only shoot seedlings over user's command through remote. It would have obstacle avoidance feature.
The drone expected to plant 1 seed per minute once the drone reaches the designated area autonomously. This reduces the cost and time of tree plantation process, and helps to overcome the increasing global warming.
Project Objectives- To modify a drone for tree plantation purpose.
- To design biodegradable seedpods containing essential nutrients with seeds.
- To design and install a seedpods shooting mechanism on the drone.
- To track down deforest terrain area using google map/earth and shooting seedpods based by operator's command.
- To incorporate obstacle avoidance for safety of drone.
- To make the drone fully autonomous (optional).
- In the initial phase the project objectives and scope are defined. Then the preliminary system design shall be carried out.
- Later detailed mathematical and design modeling will be carried out along with design analysis work.
- After the modeling and analysis is completed the system prototype shall be build.
- After completing the initial prototype, testing and debugging shall be carried out.
- After removal of all bugs and achieving the established design parameters the Prototype shall be finalized and demonstrated.
- Tropical deforestation continues to be a major driver of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions and has worst effects on our environment and society.
- Planting trees is the only solution left to stop the global warming and get a healthy environment. Planting trees manually is a costly and time taking process.
- This project has vital role in planting trees with the help of drone that can plant trees faster than manual process at lesser cost. When the seed is planted it can be damaged by impact or insects and may be the seed die due to deficiency of nutrients and moisture contents that is why the seedpods are designed with biodegradable material contains the essential nutrients and moisture, which provide it protection for initial growth period.
- This project has technical benefits like it can map the terrain area to select the exact points where to plant the seed using GPS/IMU and google map communication with obstacle avoidance feature.
A drone capable of carrying 9 to 10 seedpods with a firing and loading mechanism for the seedpods with camera, capable of planting tree seedpods at the designated location within a range of 50 m from the base station with obstacle detection feature.
Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry Agriculture , Energy Technologies Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, Others, Clean TechSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for People, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Climate Action, Life on LandRequired Resources| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 80000 | |||
| miscellaneous | Miscellaneous | 10 | 1000 | 10000 |
| Drone frame | Equipment | 1 | 13000 | 13000 |
| Camera | Equipment | 1 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Flight controller | Equipment | 1 | 9000 | 9000 |
| Paintball gun | Equipment | 1 | 20000 | 20000 |
| BLDC motors with ESC chip | Equipment | 4 | 4500 | 18000 |