MOBILE APPLICATION FOR ADJUSTING AIR-BLAST SPRAYERS IN COFFEE PLANTATION

ABSTRACT Mobile application development advances, particularly for smartphones and tablets, have allowed farmers to make decisions more assertively in their agrobusiness management. This article addresses the development and evaluation of an app aimed at people who deal with the pesticide application technology in coffee farming, more specifically, adjustment and calibration of sprayers. This mobile app provides the main data necessary for a correct calibration of air-blast sprayers to apply pesticides in coffee planting. Its functionalities include calculation of the application rate for each situation (L ha-1) based on data obtained in the field, such as canopy volume. The app, called SprayCafé, was developed for the Android platform using the Java programming language in the integrated development environment Android Studio. After the development, the application was evaluated, based on a questionnaire answered by 139 users, who ranked the following requirements: ease of use, loading time, adequacy of screen resolution, data relevance, sequence of information, and applicability, among others. The system proved to be simple and robust; it was thus assessed as adequate to the field and to be of great value for coffee planting, especially because it allows safer and more adequate pesticide application. The graphical user interface is interactive and easy to use.

摘要 智能手机与平板电脑领域的移动应用开发技术进步，使得农户在农业经营管理中能够更果断地做出决策。本文针对面向咖啡种植农药施用技术从业者（具体为喷雾器调试与校准人员）的一款应用的开发与评估展开研究。该移动应用可为咖啡种植中风送式喷雾器（air-blast sprayers）的精准校准提供所需核心数据，其功能涵盖基于冠层体积等田间实测数据，计算不同场景下的农药施用速率（单位：L ha⁻¹）。这款名为SprayCafé的应用基于安卓平台（Android）开发，采用Java编程语言（Java），并在集成开发环境Android Studio中完成搭建。开发完成后，研究团队通过139名用户填写的问卷对该应用进行评估，用户对易用性、加载时长、屏幕分辨率适配性、数据相关性、信息排布顺序以及应用实用性等多项指标进行了评分。测试结果表明，该系统简洁且稳定性强，经评估可适配田间作业场景，对咖啡种植产业具有极高应用价值，尤其可助力实现更安全、更规范的农药施用作业。其图形用户界面具备交互性且操作简便。