Unmanned Aircraft Dispenser for Automated Date Pollinator

The date industry has high costs associated with the palm tree pollination process. Since the palms are only pollinated naturally by the wind, laborers must pollinate the trees in date orchards manually to increase date productivity, a practice that is labor intensive, imprecise and can be dangerous, since it involves reaching heights of 50 feet or greater. Taking inspiration from the successful 2017 senior design project, and in conjunction with teams 18055 and 18056, the team designed a system to standardize and improve pollination practices by using autonomous unmanned aircraft technology and additive manufacturing. The pollen dispensing system allows a set payload of pollen to be deposited on each tree and is mounted directly to a commercially available unmanned aircraft, while retaining all manufacturer flight capabilities. The system also features a quick-detach mechanism to maximize unmanned aircraft up-time and allow for modularity between unmanned aircraft systems. Using additive manufacturing practices like 3D printing, the team has minimized the pollen dispenser’s weight, maximizing pollen carrying capacity and the number of trees pollinated per battery. The multi-team structure of this project has allowed multidisciplinary collaboration in producing a cohesive and modular system.