HortiTECH: Design and Fabrication of a Tree Plantation Drone

This paper describes the design and fabrication of a tree plantation drone named as HortiTECH. A large region of the earth must be reforested for a healthy and greener ecosystem, which appears to be a difficult endeavor if carried out manually. Every year, millions of trees are planted throughout the world, but the traditional process is time-consuming and costly. This difficulty is readily solved by employing drones, which are several times faster than traditional tree plantation methods. Our aim is to design a HortiTECH hexacopter drone that can plant capsuled seedlings from the air over specified topographical areas, as well as design seedpods out of biodegradable materials and a shooting mechanism for them using a Paintball gun. The drone can fly 10 to 20 feet above ground level (AGL) while following a specified planting pattern thanks to 3D mapping and processing. The drone is anticipated to initially plant ten tamarind seeds in a single journey.