Drones in agriculture:

applications and outlook

EXPO 2015

Salar Bybordi
Luca Reggiani

PhD, DEIB - Politecnico di Milano,

salar.bybordi@polimi.it
PhD, Researcher, DEIB - Politecnico di Milano
luca.reggiani@polimi.it

Outline
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Applications
UAVs for agriculture
Limitations
Future development
Conclusions

EXPO 2015

Drones in agriculture

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones,
can be unpiloted aerial vehicles or remotely piloted aircrafts.
Rotary wing

Fixed wing

[*]

Easier to pilot, agile maneuvering

Vertical take-off and landing

[o]

More efficient aerodynamics

longer flights, higher speed
Large space for take-off and landing

[*] "Parrot AR.Drone 2.0", N. Halftermeyer Wikimedia Commons

[o] "InView Unmanned Aircraft" by Fasicle, http://www.barnardmicrosystems.com/ - Wikimedia Commons

EXPO 2015

Drones in agriculture

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

UAVs are knowing a huge, increasing interest.
The worldwide market of drones for civilian use:
$609 million in 2014
forecast to reach $4.8 billion in 2021
Civilian sector is about 5% of the global market but the growth
rate is higher.
Compound annual growth rate: CAGR = 19%
The defense sector has a growth rate = 5%

EXPO 2015

Drones in agriculture

Applications
Civilian applications:
filmmaking,
search operations,
inspecting and surveying,
delivering supplies,
monitoring and data acquisition
In the following fields:
Emergency services
Security
Environmental protection
Agriculture
Engineering and architecture
Media
Business

EXPO 2015

Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Precision agriculture

Data acquisition
Remote sensing
Integration with sensor networks

Monitoring (fires, fields, animals )

Chemical and biological treatments

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Precision agriculture: advantages
Optimization of the treatments
only where and when necessary fertilizers cut down till to 20 40 %

Reduction and prevention of waste

water consumption in some cases till to almost 90 %

Reduction of labor and material costs

Reduction of pollution
Small UAVs are electrical machines.

Reduction of the risks

Automatic and continuous analysis of the processes and field status.
Prevention.

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Remote sensing
Remote sensing regards the acquisition of information about an object
or surface area by means of propagated signals (e.g. electro magnetic
waves as optical or microwave signals), typically emitted and/or received
by aerial vehicles (e.g. satellites, aircrafts, UAVs).

Main limitations of satellites and aircrafts:

expensive
need expertise
weather dependent
resolution
availability of multi-temporal data

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

UAV low altitude remote sensing: main technologies
Visible-band, near-infrared, multi-spectral, hyperspectral cameras
Plant and soil analysis
Height, growth, health, vegetation indexes.
Irrigation, property, moisture, erosion
Specific chemical components
Thermal imaging
Plant and soil analysis
Irrigation, maturity, temperature
Laser scanners
Plant and soil analysis
Height, growth, topographical maps

EXPO 2015

Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

UAV low altitude remote sensing: main technologies
Data can be acquired in 2D / 3D and as a function of time
Multi-temporal analysis:
a drone can repeat the survey periodically (even every
few hours) in order to appreciate the variations of the
field status.
Opportunity of a very advanced management and
organization of work, irrigation, fertilization and
necessary treatments.

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

UAV low altitude remote sensing: main outputs

plants

Vegetation indices
Plant growth, counting, diseases identification
Impact of chemical or biological treatments

soil

Temperature and moisture

Water issues and irrigation systems
Ground erosion and modifications, topography
Acquisition of data for insurance claims (e.g. after
storms)

Of course drones usage changes with the seasons

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Remote sensing: examples
Plant height and growth can be derived by
Laser Scanning
3D image analysis
Microwave radars.
The estimated height is
affected by errors
around few cm.
These systems are
applied to corn, wheat,
rice fields.

["Plodozmian" by Lesaw Zimny - Wikimedia Commons]

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Remote sensing: examples
Moisture estimation
Thermal cameras
Visible and near-infrared
reflectance
Microwave sensors
Multi-spectral images

["Irrigation1" by Paulkondratuk3194 - Wikimedia Commons]

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Remote sensing: examples
NDVI (normalized difference
vegetation index) estimation:
Spectral reflectance
measurements acquired
in the visible (red) and
near-infrared regions
Other properties can be derived from
NDVI: biomass, chlorophyll concentration
of leaves, plant productivity,

["SUAS_StardustII_Ndvi_sml" by Idetec uav - Wikimedia Commons]

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Drones in agriculture

UAVs for agriculture

Integration with sensor networks
UAVs operations can be controlled by means of feedbacks (wireless
signals) from a sensors network deployed on the ground.

For example:
the areas covered by treatments or irrigation can be
controlled by ground sensors in presence of wind or in
absence of precise flight plans.

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Drones in agriculture

Limitations
Drone usage is weather dependant (in particular wind, rain)
National regulations
Italy possible till to 25 kg
France possible till 150 kg
US new rules in 2015
ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) is
preparing rules for 2018.
According to EASA, (European Aviation Safety
Agency), open use could be for flights within
500 meters and maximum altitude = 150 m.

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Drones in agriculture

Future development

Technological steps
Increase of UAVs autonomy: automatic piloting and
operations
Automatic analysis for real-time decisions
Increase of precision in remote sensing
Advanced integration with sensor networks and robots on
the ground

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Drones in agriculture

Conclusions
Today UAVs are a reality in many fields of agriculture.
However precision agriculture is about to know a further
progress and UAVs will play a crucial role.
Important savings (20% - 90%) in terms of water, chemical
treatments and labor are expected.
Flight regulations are an issue but UAVs, for most
agriculture applications, have low weight and fly at low
altitudes over uninhabited and private areas

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Drones in agriculture

Bibliography
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2015.
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a review, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, June 2014.
[4] D. Anthony, S. Elbaum, A. Lorenz, C. Detweiler, On Crop Height Estimation with UAVs,
2014 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
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flexible unmanned aerial vehicle for precision agriculture, Precision Agriculture, Springer, 2012.
[6] L. Hassan-Esfahani, A. Torres-Rua, A. M. Ticlavilca, A. Jensen, M. McKee, Topsoil Moisture
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[7] F. G. Costa, J. Ueyama, T. Braun, G. Pessin, F. S. Osorio, P. A. Vargas, The Use of
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EXPO 2015

Drones in agriculture