This week’s blog will focus on the successful implementation of drones, that have shown greater benefits over traditional methods in the agricultural field. As this technology advances and spreads to companies all over the world, there are many concerns such as, safety, ethical/unethical uses, and privacy that must be addressed and continuously monitored. Because this is a review on a successful agricultural project, it may have fewer concerns given how most farms and agriculture areas are grown outdoors and, in most cases, largely unpopulated areas.
The geometric features of agricultural trees such as canopy area, tree height, and crown volume provide useful information about plantation status and crop production. Most of these calculations are completed using time-consuming field measurements and can produce inconsistent results. As an alternative, using UAV’s can present a 3-dimensional geometric feature to single growth or tree-rows, which reported up to 97% accuracy on tree quantification and minimal deviations as compared to its traditional time-consuming method.
When these UAV’s are recording data in a private farm or field, they are granted permission by the owner. There are no privacy rights trespassed in this way, which is a positive approach to begin with. Since most areas are field away from the public, the drone itself would not pose an immediate safety risk to anyone around, unless it was flying close to homes surrounding agricultural areas. From my experiences in Europe, this is more prevalent so the safety of the drone not falling from the sky by loss of system control is paramount.
Results of the data imaging were most accurate with the UAV flying around 50m, as opposed to 100m. This is a safety concern for livestock and birds as well, that has to be taken into consideration. Each country has its own drone zoning, or “drone buffer”, to help regulate privacy and security from using drones. If zoning or imaging were to be used not only for agricultural benefits but for mapping, planning, and monitoring of urban city areas, the impact of all the concerns on society will need a lot of attention. The agility and quality imaging abilities make remote sensing drone’s advantageous mapping tool for planning development, and in this case, monitoring the healthy growth of crops and trees. There are still more challenges and concerns to be more surmounted.
One advantage to creators around the globe is that they have the ability to test their products, using simulated environments to help achieve not only a solid reputation but demonstrate superiority in their performance evaluations. The University of Michigan College of Engineering researchers has a “playground” to test their drones. This gives them exposure to weather elements and practices behind the controller.
Along with simulated flight tests, another big safety concern is airworthiness of these drones, more specific to the control and communications technology. The most common data linkage to a drone is done by Line-of-sight, operating in the “C” Band at low frequencies, which are less affected by extreme weather conditions. Most of the drone technology today is operated by a pilot, and have some type of autopilot features available. If a link-loss were to happen, most drones fly to a predesignated position or just continue to hover until the data-link is restored. This is an important safety feature in my opinion. The drone takes overusing its autopilot sustainment, and even some guided direction, so It does not just shut down and drop out of the sky. Features like this will continue to be the standard as we continue seeing new regulations set in motion.
Torres-Sanchez, J. (2015). High-Throughput 3-D Monitoring of Agricultural-Tree Plantations with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Technology. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1691039598?pq-origsite=summon
Arbor, A. (2018). Drones fly in new University of Michigan outdoor test lab. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2018/03/new_university_of_michigan_m-a.html
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