Artificial pollination methods

[JoshuaFinkill]

Hello, I am a mechanical engineering student. as part of a project I am looking into designing innovative methods to manually pollinate plants using drones. Before I start making designs I would like to pick a plant that would make pollination as easy and successful as possible, whilst also being available to in the UK.

An 'easy' plant from my research would involve having:

Visible and accessible stamen.
Pollen that isn't so easily damaged.

and would Ideally not be so uncommon that there isn't lots of research already behind it.

Thanks for reading this post, any help would be greatly appreciated, or even a point in the right direction of where to look.

Josh.

 

[NigelJ]

Tomatoes.
Drone will need to be the size of a Bumble bee though.

 

[JoshuaFinkill]

Thank you

 

[Pepperhead]

You could maybe use vibrations, like a tuning fork, but amplified, to cover a larger area. I sometimes tap the stems of my toms/peppers to get them to pollinate. I'll bet it would work as a fly-by method if you find the right frequency and strength (likely quite loud to reach all of the flowers in an acceptable range). Not sure what the impact on beneficial and harmful bugs would be. Might as well add some topical fertilization delivery system with it and an on-board camera so we can see everything going on.