JP2020182416A - Aerial spraying device - Google Patents

Abstract

To increase capacity of a tank by disposing a driving part such as a motor outside the tank while adopting a structure that allows weight balance to be easily acquired, and make the machine body including the tank compact in a grain material spraying device for executing aerial spraying.SOLUTION: An aerial spraying device includes a tank in which a sprayed material is stored, a body frame having a supply port to which a lower end opening of the tank is connected for storing a motor with a rotation drive shaft coaxial with the center of the supply port, and a spray cover attached to the lower end of the body frame for incorporating an impeller attached to the rotation drive shaft. The body frame includes a storage chamber in which a drive part including the motor is stored, and a sprayed material supply passage for dropping the sprayed material onto the impeller through the outside of the storage chamber from the supply port.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 5

Description

The present invention relates to an aerial spraying device that sprays a sprayed material such as granules in the air.

As a spraying device mounted on a helicopter for aerial spraying, it is equipped with a tank for accommodating powdered particles, an impeller that is rotationally driven around a rotation axis, and an impeller cover (spray cover) that covers the upper side of the impeller. The impeller cover is provided with a disk-shaped top cover that covers the impeller and a conical side cover that covers the side surface side of the impeller, and the discharge port that supplies the spray in the tank to the top surface side of the impeller has a rotation axis. It is known that a plurality of them are arranged at equal intervals in the center (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-23949

For a spraying device that performs aerial spraying, it is important that the balance of the weight of the aircraft during spraying is stable. The prior art described in Patent Document 1 described above attempts to obtain a weight balance by arranging a plurality of discharge ports for supplying the sprayed material in the tank onto the impeller at equal intervals around the center of the rotation axis. ..

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, since the delivery cylinder is arranged around the rotating shaft and the motor that rotationally drives the impeller is arranged in the tank, the effective volume in the tank is reduced by the installation space of the motor body. If you try to secure a sufficient capacity for the sprayed material, the tank will have to be large. Further, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, in order to arrange the motor in the tank, the drive shaft is extended to the outside of the tank, the layout of the drive unit is limited by the arrangement of the shaft, and the balance of the center of gravity is extended vertically. There was a problem that it would end up.

Further, in recent years, a multicopter called a drone has become widespread, and it has been considered to use a multicopter for aerial spraying of chemicals and the like. When mounted on a copter, there was a problem that it was difficult to stably perform spraying work with a small multicopter due to the problem of large tank size and weight balance.

An object of the present invention is to deal with such a situation. That is, in a grain material spraying device that sprays a sprayed material such as a grain material in the air, the weight balance is made compact and the center of gravity is easily concentrated, but the tank capacity is increased, and the machine body including the tank and the drive unit is installed. The issue is to make it compact.

In order to solve such a problem, the present invention has the following configurations.
A main body frame for accommodating a tank for accommodating a spray material, a supply port to which the lower end opening of the tank is connected, and a rotation drive shaft coaxial with the center of the supply port, and the main body frame. A spray cover attached to the lower end and accommodating an impeller attached to the rotary drive shaft is provided, and the main body frame is provided with an accommodating chamber in which a drive unit including the motor is accommodated, and is provided from the supply port. An aerial spraying device including a spray material supply path for dropping a spray material onto the impeller through the outside of the storage chamber.

The aerial spraying device having such a configuration can increase the capacity of the tank and make the airframe including the tank and the drive unit compact, while having a structure in which the weight balance is made compact and the center of gravity is easily concentrated. As a result, even when mounted on a small multicopter, stable aerial spraying work can be performed while maintaining a weight balance.

It is explanatory drawing (side view) which showed the appearance structure of the spraying apparatus. It is the bottom view of the spraying apparatus which shows an impeller and a spraying cover. It is an exploded perspective view which showed the structure of the main body frame of a spraying apparatus. It is explanatory drawing which shows the sprayed material supply path in the main body of a spraying apparatus. It is explanatory drawing which showed the state which removed the side cover in the main body frame of a spraying apparatus. It is a front view which showed the spraying apparatus mounted on a multicopter.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the following description, the same reference numerals in different figures indicate parts having the same function, and duplicate description in each figure will be omitted as appropriate. In the following description, a grain material will be described as an example of the sprayed material. The granule material here includes chemicals, fertilizers, seeds, etc., and also contains powder material having a fine particle size.

As shown in FIG. 1, the aerial spraying device (hereinafter, spraying device) 1 includes a tank 2, a main body frame 3 connected to the tank 2, and a spray cover 4. In the spraying device 1, the center Tc of the tank 2 coincides with the center of the main body frame 3 and the spraying cover 4, and the weight balance of the machine body is axisymmetric with respect to the center Tc.

The tank 2 is a container in which granules, which are sprayed materials, are housed, and a lower end opening 2A is connected to a supply port 3A provided at the upper end of the main body frame 3. The tank 2 has a funnel-shaped side surface portion 2B having a small diameter cross section from the upper side to the lower side, and a volume capacity for accommodating only granules is secured in the tank 2. The granules housed in the tank 2 are supplied to the main body frame 3 from the lower end opening 2A by their own weight.

The main body frame 3 is provided with a supply port 3A connected to the lower end opening 2A of the tank 2 at the upper end, and a spray cover 4 is attached to the lower end of the main body frame 3. In the main body frame 3, a drive unit 50 including a motor for rotating and driving the impeller housed in the spray cover 4 is provided, and the grain material supplied from the tank 2 is used for the impeller in the spray cover 4. A spray supply channel for dropping on is formed. Further, in the illustrated example, removable side cover 3Bs are provided on both side surfaces of the main body frame 3.

FIG. 2 is a bottom view of the spraying device 1, and an impeller 5 attached to the rotary drive shaft 5A is arranged at the center of the spraying cover 4. The spray cover 4 has an upper surface portion 40 that covers the upper side of the impeller 5 and a side wall portion 41 that surrounds a part of the side of the impeller 5, and is attached to the lower end of the main body frame 3 on the upper side of the impeller 5. .. The upper surface portion 40 of the spray cover 4 is provided with a pair of drop ports 4A and 4B for dropping grain materials on the impeller 5 at axially symmetrical positions of the rotation center of the impeller 5.

Further, the spray cover 4 is provided with main diffusion channels 4C and 4D corresponding to the drop ports 4A and 4B. By providing the main diffusion channels 4C and 4D, the granules dropped from the drop ports 4A and 4B can be diffused mainly in the direction of 180 °. Further, the spray cover 4 is provided with jagged drop surfaces 41A to 41D on the side wall portions 41 other than the main diffusion flow paths 4C and 4D. As a result, the granules can be effectively dropped around the impeller 5, and the granules that fly in the circumferential direction can be rectified, and uniform spraying within the spraying range becomes possible. Therefore, the spraying range can be expanded with higher directivity.

The spray cover 4 having such a function has a relatively simple structure, and is an axisymmetrically shaped single component having a linear side wall portion 41 and a jagged falling surface 41A to 41D, and is made of a resin material or the like. It can be formed as a molded part. As a result, mass productivity can be improved and low-cost and low-weight parts can be obtained.

As shown in FIG. 3, the main body frame 3 has a structure in which a pair of plane-symmetrical divided molded bodies 31 and 32 are connected by a fastening member 33. The main body frame 3 is provided with a drive unit 50 inside. The drive unit 50 is a servomotor that drives the shutter 10 with respect to the DC motor 51 that rotationally drives the impeller 5, the control board 52 that controls the DC motor 51, the electronic components 53 that are connected to the control board 52, and the measuring plate 11. 54 and its driving member 55 and the like are included.

The main body frame 3 includes a storage chamber 30 that houses the drive unit 50 described above. The storage chamber 30 is formed by joining the divided molded bodies 31 and 32 by the compartment portions S1 and S2 formed inside the divided molded bodies 31 and 32. On the other hand, the main body frame 3 includes a pair of spray material supply paths 60 from the supply port 3A to the drop ports 4A and 4B described above through the outside of the accommodating portion 30. The storage chamber 30 is provided to isolate the drive unit 50 from the spray material supply path 60 in the main body frame 3, and the grain material does not enter the inside of the storage chamber 30.

As shown in FIG. 4, a measuring plate 11 is provided in the middle of the spray material supply path 60. In the spray material supply path 60, an inclined flow path 60A is formed directly below the supply port 3A, and the two measuring ports 11A and 11B provided on the measuring plate 11 arranged at the lower end of the inclined flow path 60A under the inclined flow path 60A. The side is divided into a pair of flow paths. One of the flow paths is formed from the measuring port 11A to the outside of the storage chamber 30 in the split molded body 31 and reaches the dropping port 4A, and the other flow path is from the measuring port 11B to the split molded body 32. It is formed on the outside of the containment chamber 30 in the above, and reaches the drop port 4B from there.

The measuring plate 11 and the shutter 10 close the measuring ports 11A and 11B of the measuring plate 11 by driving the shutter 10 by the servomotor 54, thereby blocking the granules dropped on the dropping ports 4A and 4B and blocking the measuring ports. By adjusting the opening areas of 11A and 11B, a metering mechanism for adjusting the amount of granules dropped on the dropping ports 4A and 4B is configured. In the metering mechanism, the shutter 10 slides along the measuring plate 11. The measuring ports 11A and 11B have an opening shape such that the opening change in the adjustment at the initial stage from the fully closed state is larger than the opening change in the subsequent adjustment.

As shown in FIG. 5, the spray material supply path 60 on the lower side of the measuring plate 11 is an internal flow path in which the space outside the accommodation chamber 30 in the divided molded bodies 31 and 32 and the space inside the side cover 3B are combined. 60B is formed. The internal flow path 60B is a pair of supply paths that are dropped around the rotation axis on the impeller 5 via the outside of the accommodation chamber 30, and can be opened by removing the removable side cover 3B from the main body frame 3. You can do it. By removing the side cover 3B so that the internal flow path 60B can be opened in this way, it is possible to easily remove the clogging of the granules in the internal flow path 60B and perform maintenance (cleaning) after use. ..

Further, inside the side cover 3B, an adjusting plate 12 for adjusting the width of the internal flow path 60B (sprayed material supply path 60) is detachably provided. The adjustment plate 12 partitions the space of the internal flow path 60B, and when the adjustment plate 12 is attached, the space inside the adjustment plate 12 becomes the internal flow path 60B, and the effective areas of the drop ports 4A and 4B also correspond accordingly. It becomes smaller. When the adjusting plate 12 is removed, the internal flow path 60B becomes a space in which the space outside the accommodation chamber 30 and the space inside the side cover 3B in the split molded bodies 31 and 32 are combined, and the side cover 3B The internal flow path 60B can be expanded by forming a circulation space having a predetermined volume inside the space. When the adjusting plate 12 is removed, the entire drop ports 4A and 4B have an effective opening area. By providing such an adjusting plate 12, it is possible to cope with the spraying of various grain materials having different particle sizes and specific gravities.

In the main body frame 3, the center of the supply port 3A (center Tc of the tank 2) and the output shaft of the DC motor 51 housed in the storage chamber 30 are coaxial, and the impeller 5 in the spray cover 4 rotates. The drive shaft 5A and the center of the supply port 3A are coaxial. Further, a pair of spray material supply paths 60 formed in the main body frame 3 are formed axially symmetrically with respect to the center of the supply port 3A (that is, the rotation drive shaft 5A).

As a result, the spraying device 1 can perform the work in a state where the weight is balanced, and the gravity object such as the drive unit 50 is compactly arranged inside the main body frame 3 to concentrate the center of gravity. , When spraying in the air, it is possible to work while flying in a stable state. Further, since the center of the spraying device 1 (center Tc of the tank 2) is the driving center of the impeller 5, and the spraying cover 4 is formed axisymmetrically with respect to the center, the spraying device 1 is formed from the center of the machine body. The spraying range can be expanded equally to the left and right, and for a worker who performs the spraying work while operating a multicopter or the like, the spraying work can be performed while clearly grasping the entire spraying range.

FIG. 6 shows a state in which the spraying device is mounted on the multicopter M. In this example, the spraying device 1 is supported by an installation frame 100 connected to a connection portion of the multicopter M, and an upper portion of a tank 2 is attached to an upper portion of the installation frame 100.

In this way, the spraying device 1 mounted on the multicopter M can bring the center of the spraying device 1 (center Tc of the tank 2) closer to the center of gravity of the whole, and the spraying device 1 itself has a weight-balanced body. By doing so, it is possible to perform the spraying work while flying the multicopter M in a stable state.

Further, since only the granules are stored in the tank 2 in the spraying device 1, the tank can be stored even if the capacity is the same as that in the conventional technique in which the drive unit 50 is provided in the tank 2. It can be miniaturized. Further, since the spraying device 1 has the drive unit compactly arranged in the main body frame 3, the center of gravity is concentrated inside the main body frame 2 as compared with the conventional technique in which the drive shaft is extended from the inside of the tank to the outside. be able to.

As a result, the weight balance can be made compact and the center of gravity can be easily concentrated, but the tank capacity can be increased and the aircraft including the tank and the drive unit can be made compact. When mounted on a small multicopter M In addition, stable aerial spraying work can be performed while maintaining the weight balance. Further, since the spraying device 1 can be reduced in weight by omitting the forced feeding mechanism of the granules, the self-sustaining flight of the multicopter M during work can be stably continued.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail with reference to the drawings, the specific configuration is not limited to these embodiments, and the design changes, etc. within the range not deviating from the gist of the present invention, etc. Even if there is, it is included in the present invention. Further, each of the above-described embodiments can be combined by diverting the technologies of each other as long as there is no particular contradiction or problem in the purpose and configuration thereof.

1: Aerial spraying device (spraying device),
2: Tank, 2A: Lower end opening, 2B: Side surface,
3: Body frame, 3A: Supply port, 3B: Side cover, 30: Storage room,
31, 32: split molded body, 33: fastening member,
4: Spray cover, 4A, 4B: Drop port, 4C, 4D: Main diffusion channel,
40: upper surface, 41: side wall, 41A to 41D: falling surface,
5: Impeller, 5A: Rotary drive shaft,
50: Drive unit, 51: DC motor, 52: Control board, 53: Electronic components,
54: Servo motor, 55: Drive member,
60: Spray supply path, 60A: Inclined flow path, 60B: Internal flow path,
10: Shutter, 11: Weighing plate, 11A, 11B: Weighing port,
12: Adjustment plate, 100: Installation frame,
M: Multicopter, S1, S2: Section, Tc: Center

Claims (4)

A tank that houses the spray and
A main body frame for accommodating a motor having a supply port to which the lower end opening of the tank is connected and having a rotary drive shaft coaxial with the center of the supply port.
It is provided with a spray cover attached to the lower end of the main body frame and accommodating the impeller attached to the rotary drive shaft inside.
The main body frame includes a storage chamber in which a drive unit including the motor is housed, and also includes a spray material supply path for dropping the spray material onto the impeller from the supply port through the outside of the storage chamber. A featured aerial spraying device. A pair of the spray material supply paths are provided on the outside of the storage chamber.
The aerial spraying device according to claim 1, wherein the spraying cover is provided with a pair of dropping ports for dropping a sprayed object at axially symmetrical positions around the rotary drive shaft. The aerial spraying device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the sprayed material supply path is formed in a side cover that can be attached to and detached from the main body frame. The aerial spraying device according to claim 3, wherein an adjusting plate for adjusting the width of the sprayed material supply path is detachably provided inside the side cover.

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