what can you do with low cost, consumer level drones in precision
TRANSCRIPT
What can you do with low cost, consumer level drones in precision agriculture?
Soilessentials Ltd, Hilton of Fern, By Brechin, Angus, Scotland. DD9 6SB [email protected]
Introduction to SoilEssentials Ltd • Precision Ag Specialists
– Incorporated in 2000 – Around 25 agronomists, engineers, programmers, GIS specialists
• Agronomic Skills – Soil Sampling, Yield Mapping, Soil Texture
• Machine Control – Trimble Resellers – Tractor autosteer, section control, variable rate, RTK network – Develop our own range of hardware - potato yield monitors, etc
• IT Development – Build our own customisable agronomy platform for sale to Ag Service Companies. – Multiple projects with ESA, Innovate UK, Commercial companies. – Aim is to take farm-based sensor data, use it in crop recommendation algorithms – Satellite imagery, UAV’s, tractor mounted sensors – Soil Sampling, soil texture, irrigation management – Farm quality control - crop temp monitoring, quality assurance, diesel tank logistics, weather
stations
aims to make imagery more reliable.
• KORE project for the European Space Agency aims to combine satellite, UAV and tractor mounted sensor to ensure imagery on demand, even in cloudy periods.
• ESA funded KORE project currently has 2 Partners: Elecnor Deimos & SoilEssentials.
• Sat Imagery & UAV’s can offer an innovative, low cost, near real time, high resolution imagery solution for use by growers & agronomists.
• If growers can get imagery on-demand, we can use it in:
– Crop scouting
– Finding and diagnosis of crop limiting factors..
Technology Growth Perception v Reality
Time
Gro
wth
How we think technology grows
How technology is actually growing..
Disappointment..
Disruption & Amazement
NOW
So why NOW?
• Hardware Functionality
– Low cost, easy to fly with an app.
• Low Cost
– £500 to £1500 off the shelf
• Easy Image Processing…
– Elastic cloud based data processing and delivery
• EASE of USE….
– Of hardware ( autonomous flight, autopilots, etc)
– Automated data processing of imagery
What can you do with consumer drones in precision agriculture?
• Crop Scouting on demand
– Quick, large areas, low cost, very high resolution.
• Weed mapping
– Blackgrass, wild oats, docks & thistles in grass, bracken, gorse…
• Produce high resolution digital surface models (DSM)
• Create VRA maps based on uav images, delivered to the tractor.
• Plant counting, tree height measurement, % groundcover
Which hardware?
• Currently prefer multi rotors
– Can do large fields
– Fly in poor weather
– High resolution
– Easy to use
• Suggest DJI Phantom 3, 4 and Inspire
– Work well – mature product.
– Geotagged images
– Works with various apps to control image capture and flight path.
– Easy to use.
Which software?
• Has to be a web application
– Images are too big to be easily processed on a desktop
– Then how do you view them?
– And what do you do with them?
• So we built EssentialsMAP to solve these problems
– Online processing makes it easy.
– Access to the high resolution images on any device
– Create application maps and send to applicator.
– Compare with yield maps, soil samples, soil texture, etc
– Integrate with sat images and tractor mounted sensors.
EssentialsMAP Customised Precision Ag Portal
Farmers & Agronomists need Mobile!
Example – Blackgrass Scouting
Example – Blackgrass Scouting
Example – Blackgrass Scouting
Example – Wild Oat Scouting
Example – Wild Oat Scouting
Example – Weeds in Grass
Example – Weeds in Grass
Example – Sugar Beet in Holland
Example – Sugar Beet in Holland
Example – Gas pipeline Scouting
Example – Gas pipeline Scouting
Example – Vining Peas VARI – from RGB
Example – Image Mosaic & DSM
Example – Christmas Tree Counting
Field Height Map
Drone Imagery Detail
Car Roof Height
Car Bonnet Height
>1m is black, > 1.5 is red, > 2.0 is Yellow
Example – Trial Plots
Example – Trial Plots
Example – Ukraine Soya Plots
Example – UK Potato
Example – UK Potato
Example – UK Potato
Example – UK Potato Ground Cover
What can you do with consumer drones in precision agriculture?
• Quite a lot actually!
• 80 / 20 rule.
– You can get 80% of the value for 20% of the cost
• We are now at the technology sweetspot for the drones themselves
• Web apps built for precision ag make it easy to take, process, view and share and create application maps.
• Now take the first step !
What can you do with consumer drones in precision agriculture?
Would you like to be involved?
We are looking for demo users this season
Do you have your own drone?
Get in touch!
07702 741516
European Conference on Precision Ag Edinburgh -16th to 20th July 2016
Questions?