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9 Ways Drones are Disrupting Agriculture

There’s a lot more to farming than just planting seeds, watering them and picking them once they’ve grown. And with the widespread adoption of drones, agriculture is getting even more precise and efficient.

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1. Fighting Crop Diseases

Drones can be used for multispectral imaging, outfitted with crop health sensors that run NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index). Aerial NDVI sensors aren’t totally new — they used to be outfitted to manned airplanes — but with drones, they are quicker and cheaper.

2. Fertilizer

NDVI is used for more than just analyzing diseases. NDVI images may be able to prescribe fertilizer applications, estimate yields and identify weeds. (NDVI is an important graphical indicator for farmers to analyze remote sensing measurements and assess whether the land contains live green vegetation or not.)

3. NIR Sensors

Similar to NDVI, near-infrared sensors can determine plant health based on light absorption.

4. Pollination

Drone companies such as Bee Innovative have been tracking honeybees in real time for precision pollination. Bee Innovative claims that its “BeeDar” solution has already delivered 20 percent increases in crop yields and returns for farmers season to season. And California-based agriculture technology startup DropCopter allows farmers to pollinate orchards via drones.

5. Food Security

Whether it’s generating more vegetables, fruits or even coffee beans, drones are able to maximize crop yields. There’s no better example of that than the work being done by Lyela Mutisya, who is using drones to help her father’s coffee farm in Kenya. She said many Kenya farms can’t afford fertilizer (a well-managed coffee farm can produce up to 30 pounds of coffee per tree, but a coffee farm that can’t afford fertilizer produces more like 5 pounds of coffee per tree). Drone technology is effective at collecting data to help coffee farmers improve crop health. They can have a role in efficient crop scouting, earlier yield predictions, earlier crop stress detection, enhanced irrigation management and control, and more precise nutrient and chemical applications.

6. Pesticides

And on that note, pest and decision control is very important in coffee farming, as well as all other types of agriculture. Pests can cause an 80% loss in coffee trees. That alone can significantly hurt a coffee farm. If a tree were to get infected and lose 80% of their crop, a drone can help prevent that.

7. Herbicides

In fact, DJI launched its own crop spraying drone back in November 2015.

8. Thermal Cameras

In December 2015, DJI announced a collaboration with Flir Systems Inc., an Oregon-based sensor manufacturer that focuses on thermal imaging. In agriculture, farmers use thermal imaging as they fly over fields to indicate dry spots, over-watering, crop height or pesticide use.

9. Planting Seeds

Companies such as DroneSeed are building drones that can blast fertilizer and seeds into the ground at 350 feet per second. DroneSeed says its solution is good for the environment, worker safety and investors. DroneSeed’s drones currently have a flight time of about 30 minutes; after changing batteries, the drones can cover an acre within 1.5 hours.

View the full article by drone girl here

Elevate Your Listing With These Six Best Practices for Drone Video and Photography

Any real estate professional knows that “curb appeal” and “location, location, location” have long been twin pillars of selling a property. Today’s technologies, combined with the expectations of a new generation of buyers, are raising the bar on how to present a listing in the best possible light.

Savvy real estate professionals are not just focusing on a home’s interior — they’re also raising their eyes to the sky. Dronography is the listing agent's new essential tool for marketing any property consumers would want to rent (apartments), lease (vacation homes) or buy (residential or commercial properties).

Now, there’s little barrier to entry for real estate professionals raising the bar on listing videos or photography.

A uas , or Drone, photographer offer a highly cost-effective way to elevate your marketing efforts. Aerial video and photography capture stunning, views of a property and also convey a lifestyle.

Here are 6 Things You Can Do to Make them the Best:

1. Get acquainted with the roof and gutters.

Most of us pay no attention to them until problems occur. Sellers should know beforehand that the roof is in great shape and the gutters are free of leaves and debris. Buyers will be deterred if your drone video reveals missing shingles or saplings growing in the gutter.

2. Clear the clutter.

Just as you’d declutter a home’s interior, clear the exterior of kids’ toys, bicycles, hoses or trash bins. The rule about clutter applies whether inside or out: A property appears more spacious when it’s clutter-free.

3. Avoid outdoor maintenance work on the day of the drone appointment.

Get the landscaping and the pool cleaning done ahead of time and be sure all equipment is out of sight. And be sure your drone appointment doesn’t coincide with trash pick-up day.

4. Alert the neighbors in advance.

Drones have an unmistakable hum, and they are not that common in most neighborhoods. Sellers should avoid unwanted surprises by telling the neighbors the day and time the dronographer is due to arrive. The entire video shoot should take less than 30 minutes, so emphasize to clients and their neighbors that it’s a short process.

5. Notify parents of young children, too.

If the neighborhood kids regularly play outside, Mom and Dad may be more comfortable if they have the option to keep them inside or take them out for a ride.

6. Cloudy days are fine days for capturing aerial images and video.

Since a cloudy sky eliminates the harsh shadows projected on a landscape. Still, many sellers want sunshine in their drone videos and photography. Any customer-focused photography company should have the flexibility to happily reschedule the drone appointment when requested.

With these best practices in mind, you can elevate each and every property listing with dronography.

Yuneec's new Typhoon H drone is the biggest challenge yet to DJI

Our favorite consumer drone has consistently been produced by one company, DJI. So far no one has produced a unit that delivers the same quality, consistency, and ease of use, but...

Yuneec unveiled a new unit, the Typhoon H, the promises to deliver a high-end, Hollywood-caliber drone, but at just two-thirds of the price of DJI's Inspire 1.

The Typhoon H, like the Inspire 1, has retractable landing gear and a camera which can pan a full 360 degrees. Unlike the Inspire and the previous version of the Typhoon, the new unit has six rotors instead of four. Yuneec says this will allow the craft to remain stable and land in the event it loses one or two motors. DJI also has a six-rotor craft aimed at Hollywood professionals, the S900, which sells for $3,400 when fully equipped with a HD camera. The Typhoon H is expected to retail for $1,799, while the Inspire 1 goes for $2,600.

The new Typhoon H is also promising the full suite of autonomous features, something which has become table stakes for drones these days. It has Orbit, Point of Interest, Curved Cable, and something called Journey. It has basic sense and avoid technology on board, using "ultrasonic proximity detection" to automatically dodge large obstacles. In theory it should also give the aircraft more lift, allowing for heavier and more sophisticated camera equipment.

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Beautiful Drone Video of Scotland

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The Locations in the video are:

0:00 - Glencoe (opening scenes of Braveheart shot here) 0:19 - Eilean Donan Castle. 0:34 - Dunnottar Castle 0:52 - Dunnottar Castle 0:59 - Forest near Loch Oich 1:08 - Old Man of Storr (Isle of Skye) 1:18 - Inveraray Castle 1:24 - Finnich Glen - Devil's Pulpit 1:34 - Quiraing (Isle of Skye) 1:40 - Mealt Falls (Isle of Skye) 1:52 - Kilchurn Castle 1:55 - Offshore Northeast of Isle of Skye 2:02 - Neist Point Light House (Isle of Skye) 2:11 - Castle Stalker (Monty Python) 2:23 - Neist Point Light House (Isle of Skye) 2:29 - Quiraing (Isle of Skye) 2:36 - Loch Pooltiel 2:56 - Loch Dunvegan 3:00- Neist Point Light House (Isle of Skye)

DRONES GO TO WORK

The disruptive economics of unmanned vehicles are taking hold. Here’s how to think about the drone economy and your place in it.

You might think of drones as toys or flying cameras for the GoPro set, and that is still the lion’s share of the business. But like the smartphone and other examples of the “commercialization of enterprise” before them, drones are now being outfitted with business-grade software and becoming serious data-collection platforms — hardware as open and extensible as a smartphone, with virtually limitless app potential. As in any app economy, surprising and ingenious uses will emerge that we haven’t even thought of yet; and predictable and powerful apps will improve over time.

Great article worth a read at hbr

Flying a Drone in a National Park

The National Park Service in August 2014 made it illegal to launch, land, or operate unmanned aircraft under 36 CFR 1.5, which essentially gives the National Park Service the authority to impose public use limits such as hours of operations or not walking off the path.

However, there is a chance you can still fly your drone there. Purposes such as scientific study, search and rescue operations, fire operations, and law enforcement can operate under written permission from National Park Service administration.

No matter what National Park you want to fly in, contact that park’s specific management team well in advance and explain what you need to do. It would help if you can prove your case and professionalism. Ideally you would have a Part 107 certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to prove you are a licensed drone pilot. If you don’t, get it first!

The Best Drone Photos in the World

For the third year in a row, the international Dronestagram contest has recognized outstanding drone photos.

The nine photos in this gallery showcase the top three winners in each category: Nature-Wildlife, Sports Adventure, and Travel. They were selected from 5,900 entries spanning 28 countries. Together, they speak to what Jarret says is the purpose of this contest: “to celebrate the beauty of drone photography, a new photographic language.

10 Ways Drones Are Changing Your World

Drones have been a hot topic in the news for some time. Depending on what you’ve read, they’re devastatingly effective weapons of war, the next big threat to personal privacy, a revolutionary leap in video technology, or hazardous toys capable of chopping your fingers off.

To be fair, there’s a measure of truth to all those statements. But you might be surprised to learn that drones will soon affect our everyday lives in a host of useful ways. People are already using them to deliver fast food to hungry teens in Virginia, improve the productivity of Midwestern farms, and even protect rhinos and elephants in Africa from poachers.

In the next year, almost 2.3 million of the unmanned aircraft will be sold, according to market analysis firm Skylogic Research. And the vast majority will be the multi­rotor models embraced by apple farmers, wedding photographers, and search-and-rescue workers. [Keep Reading]

Disney World Drone Light Show

Disney World To Launch 300-Drone Light Show.

Earlier this month, Intel showed its video of 500 drones flying in formation at night in Germany. The LED lights on the drones spelled out the word ‘Intel.’

That was the first known example of a mass of hundreds of drones being used to portray a company logo in the sky at night.

A version of that drone light show is now moving to Walt Disney World in Orlando.

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WRC Looks Better Than Ever

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The footage drones produce can be beautiful. Being able to fly on a completely different parallax, easily adjusting height and speed, all gives an intensely visually stimulating image. So when this is paired with chasing a mud-slinging rally car, drones give depth and a rawness that a man in the helicopter or the muddy guy with the tripod just can’t.

See more at Top Gear

 
 
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