The fascinating future of Agridrones for farmers

With the arrival of the 21st century, the digital age was outlined in the world. With it, the dream of humanity turned into reality: the ability to fly, have the sight of an eagle, and reach remote places without the need to be present. This, thanks to drones.

This messenger bird has no limits. It goes where the human mind takes it. That is how reality surpasses fiction; currently, these devices are continually evolving to the extent that they help take photographs and videos. One of the most favorable action fields for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in the civil scope, as an emerging technology, is in agriculture.

 

Interesting uses of drones

There are other uses, such as Amazon Prime Air which is “a service that will deliver packages up to five pounds in 30 minutes or less using small drones” (Amazon, 2016), or after the death of George Floyd, drones were used to surveil protests “The FBI used a small plane equipped to collect mobile phone location data over Washington” (Aljazeera, 2020) or even Sky News (2020) reported that scientists plan to clean up the ocean from plastic using these devices. 

Benefits of agridrones in the field of agriculture

The demand for food in the world has increased enormously; the harvesting has been quadrupled in the last 60 years, according to The World Bank Data (2017). This growth requires ampler crops, which become too extensive to be managed entirely in the old years. This problem generates that farmers must catch up with ‘agricultural automation,’ which according to Krishna (2018, p 31) this technology reduces errors associated with human fatigue, adds accuracy and economic efficiency of agricultural operations when it comes to irrigation or application of fertilizers and pesticides to the soil.

DJI, the largest Chinese drone brand, has released several models such as Agras MG-1, Agras T20, or DJI Terra. All these have in common what Bacco (2018) highlights: they are essential in places where substantial agricultural machines are needed, where direct and real-time communications are required among a cluster of machinery working at the same time, as well as communication with the farm to update working plans.

The new frontier of smart farming powered by 5G (Inside Telecom, 2020)

Agricultural drones in the future

Among the following available tools in upcoming years, essential results in the detection of patterns in images will be achieved:

• Machine learning involves a process to understand from experience or training data to accomplish a task,  as Liakos et al. ( 2018 p. 3 – 6) stated. Among their applications are yield prediction, disease detection, weed detection, crop quality, and species recognition. But as well, animal welfare and livestock production.

• Computer vision, electronic noise, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray, magnetic resonance, and hyperspectral images will be used to examine food quality as Vithu and Moses assert (2016, cited in Inácio and Rieder, 2018 p. 1). Precision Farming will redesign the agricultural business entirely.

• The inclusion of better hardware to ease the programming will help developers in building new applications and devices. For instance, NVIDIA is developing a high and sophisticated self-driving tractor for farming.

The combination of these three mechanisms has been revealed to be promising in solving diverse problems in agriculture. Predictive aptitude is a method that has gained importance in machine learning that will trigger an unprecedented result in different sections of the conventional industry with agriculture.

Will this technology change farmer's work in the future? Let us know your opinion below.

Written by: Carlos Sáez Muñoz

Aljazeera (2020), US law enforcement surveilled protests with drones, spy planes. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/11/us-law-enforcement-surveilled-protests-with-drones-spy-planes  (Accessed: 17 February 2020) 

Amazon (2016), Amazon Prime Air. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Prime-Air/b?ie=UTF8&node=8037720011 (Accessed: 17 February 2020).

Bacco M. (2018), Smart farming: Opportunities, challenges and technology enablers, IoT Vertical and Topical Summit on Agriculture - Tuscany (IOT Tuscany) Available at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8373043 (Accessed: 17 February 2020).

Inácio, D. Rieder, R. (2018) ‘Computer vision and artificial intelligence in precision agriculture for grain crops: A systematic review.’ Available at: https://www.alice.cnptia.embrapa.br/bitstream/doc/1099103/1/ID444052008CompElectroAgricv153p69.pdf (Accessed: 17 February 2020).

Inside Telecom (2020) 'The new frontier of smart farming powered by 5G'. Available at: https://www.insidetelecom.com/the-new-frontier-of-smart-farming-powered-by-5g/ (Accessed: 17 February 2020).

Krishna, K.R (2108), Agricultural drones: a peaceful pursuit. Apple Academic Press. The USA.

Liakos, K. Busato, P. Moshou, D. Pearson, S. and Bochtis, D. (2018) ‘Machine Learning in Agriculture: A Review.’ Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327029380_Machine_Learning_in_Agriculture_A_Review (Accessed: 17 February 2020).

Sky News (2020), Unmanned boats and drones could repair offshore wind farms and clean up plastic in the sea. Available at: https://news.sky.com/story/unmanned-boats-and-drones-could-repair-offshore-wind-farms-and-clean-up-plastic-in-the-sea-12105401 (Accessed: 17 February 2020).

The World Bank Data (2017), Cereal production. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.PRD.CREL.MT (Accessed: 17 February 2020).