Agricultural Drones

Relatively cheap drones with advanced sensors and imaging capabilities are giving farmers new ways to increase yields and reduce crop damage.

Breakthrough:-

Easy-to-use ­agricultural drones equipped with ­cameras, for less than $1,000.

Why It Matters:-

Close monitoring of crops could improve water use and pest management.

Key Players:-

·          3D Robotics

·         Yamaha

·         PrecisionHawk

Advantages of agricultural drones:-

1. They can save lives. In natural and manmade disasters, UAS can be positioned to survey damage, locate stranded and injured victims, and assess ongoing threats without risking the safety of rescue teams and first-responders.
 

2. They can support law enforcement. UAS can be used to search for lost children, provide tactical surveillance and suspect tracking, assist in accident investigations, and monitor large crowds.

3. They can contribute to safe infrastructure maintenance and management. Consider the difficulty of inspecting the underside of a bridge or the top of a skyscraper, not to mention the costs and risks. With UAS, scaffolding, cranes, or harnesses are not required. Just deploy the system to assess the structure's condition remotely.

4. They can streamline agriculture management. Using a crop management system to observe, measure, and respond to variability in individual plants, farmers can target areas requiring attention. By pinpointing these areas, farmers can provide care only where needed—improving yield, conserving resources, and avoiding waste.

5. They can give media access to hard-to-reach places. Aerial photography for a news broadcast or a blockbuster film can be efficiently, economically, and safely captured by a UAS.