Fruit production isnegatively affected by damage caused by frost and birds in both China and America.For example, frost damage could harm 73.3 thousand hm^2 of plantations andcause a loss of 944,000,000 Yuan in Hebei; up to 35% of fruits, estimatedworthy of ＄1,788,500,were lost to birds in New York. Such great losses harm the government's andcorporations’ interests. In Hebei, protection nets against low temperatures andbirds are utilized, but 1) casting the nets currently lacks mechanical aid. 2)The canopy is hard to reach, and 3) nets are usually poorly cast because are frequently stuck by the sticks, which results in 4) expensive labor costs. Fossilfuels are burned in Florida to keep trees warm, which is disastrous to theenvironment. Hence, we propose a net-spreading device to solve this problem forgovernments and large corporations. We want to develop a product that helpscast nets manually and then improve it so that it can be installed on a droneto spread nets automatically. For now, we start with a prototype for gardenersto operate manually that can 1) be affordable and spread protective nets overfruits with efficiency 2) cast the net over the tree with the user on theground 3) prevent the nets from being stuck by sticks 4) reduce the work timefor workers to reduce labor cost. The following flow of tasks is completed: 1) investigatehow different kinds of fruit trees suffer from birds pecking or freeze injuryto tailor our later design to the tree that is most in need 2) theoreticallycalculate the requirements on the launchers that will cast the net and model multipleprototypes in CAD that undergo down selection 3) design a fixture that canattach the launcher to various long rods for trees of different height 4)design a deployable structure to reduce the friction when the launchers aresent through the canopy and their storage space. In this way, the launchers canbe installed on various rods. They go through their canopy to above the top ofthe tree. Then the launchers are deployed and the net is launched horizontallyso that it will not be stuck in the tree. Thus, a typical few hours spent onapplying nets can be reduced to a few minutes, greatly shortening the workingsessions of workers. This invention, with economy and simplicity, significantlyimproves the efficiency of applying nets to fruit trees and curtails labor costs.With better cast nets and reduced expense, the interests of the governments andthe corporations are well preserved.
