International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 10, Issue 5, May-2019 1173 ISSN 2229-5518 IJSER © 2019 http://www.ijser.org Solar Powered Sprayer- A review Nashmin Alam and Murshed Alam Abstract— Solar powered sprayer hold promise toward the agriculture’s unmechanized and drudging tasks of manually or small engine operated sprayer. The solar-powered sprayers also save crop cultivation cost and reduce environmental pollution. This review describes the current status of the solar-powered sprayer, flow chart and circuit diagram required for the successful development of the sprayer. The ca- pacity of solar panel varied from 10 W to 60 W. A very good relation was found between the size and weight of the solar panel with the pow- er rating of the solar panel. The capacity of the spray tank was varied between 12 L to 16 L. However, there was no relation found between the capacity of the spray tank and power rating of the solar panel. The weights of the panel were varied from 2 kg to 6 kg. The power rating of the solar panel increases its weight raises but the time for charging the battery decreases if the solar panel is operating at its maximum rating. The relation between power rating of solar panel and charging time of battery was established and presented graphically. A few com- plete solar powered sprayers have demonstrated the potential of the technology in the field. Additional research and development is needed to fully realize this potential. Index Terms— solar panel, charging battery, flow chart of sprayer, circuit diagram, spray and ergonomics. ——————————  —————————— 1 INTRODUCTION N agriculture sector there is a lot of field work, such as weeding, reaping, sowing etc. Apart from these operations, spraying is also an important operation to be performed by the farmer to protect the cultivated crops from insects, pests, funguses and diseases for which various insecticides, pesti- cides, fungicides and nutrients are sprayed on crops for pro- tection [1]. Most of the developing countries of the world use hand operated compression type (fig.1) or lever operated sprayer (fig. 2) or a small engine operated sprayers (fig.3) to apply pesticides in their field. The operation of compression type, lever operted knapsack and engine operted spryers are shown in fig. 4 and 5 respectively. A hand operated sprayer is a continuous type of sprayer with a fairly constant discharge rate. A person maintains pressure in the tank by pumping air with a lever with one hand and directs the spray lance with the other hand. The recommended lever strokes per minute are 20-30 and 10-25 by FAO [5] and [6] and RNAM [7] respectively. Maintaining a constant pres- sure is very difficult with a manual knapsack sprayer and causes user fatigue due to maintain a constant pressure and excessive heavy bulky construction [8],[9],[10],[11] and [12]. The maximum discomfort in the body parts experienced in the lever-operated knapsack sprayer were in the left clavicle re- gion, followed by lower back, neck, left thigh and right clavi- cle [13], [14] and [15]. In addition, the lever operation induces greater variation in spray pressure results inconsistency of application which adversely affects pest control [16], [17], [18] and [19]. I ———————————————— • Nashmin Alam is currently pursuing masters degree program in electric electronic engineering in the Bangladesh University of Engineering & Tech- nolgy (BUET), Dhaka- 1000. E-mail: nashminalam@gmail.com • Murshed Alam is currently working in Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202. E-mail: murshedalambau@gmail.com Fig.1. Manually operated compression sprayer [2] Fig.2. Components of lever operated knapsack sprayer. [4] IJSER