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DJI to launch crop-spraying drone in effort to expand into farming sector
- mrfusion 11y agoHow does this get around all the heavy faa regulation?
- dejv 11y agoNot only FAA, there are additional regulations that prohibit use of aerial vehicles to spray crops. The reason to do that is to minimise chemical pollution to other fields/nature. These regulations depend on country and few other things.
- frisco 11y agoCrop dusting is very common in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_application
- jqm 11y agoYes, including the US. Spraying crops with airplanes is very common. Not sure where the idea it is banned comes from?
- dejv 11y agoYes, they are very common in countries where the short term profits are king. The problem with aerial spraying is wind: you don't want your herbicides/insecticides to be sprayed out of your field: as it can kill bees or local population of butterflies and other insects as well as local herbs and plants that grow around. In EU we banned the aerial spraying (in most cases) as well as have quite complex rules to minimise this pollution: like not using spray in form of aerosols and such.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nmrm2 11y agoDJI is a Chinese company. I'm assuming they'll have a huge market regardless of whether US regulators move on this issue.
- elmar 11y agoBBC Article - http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34944136 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34944136
- fanquake 11y agoI can see the possible benefit for small vineyards & farms, but at 4ha/hr it would take more than a week to cover a single paddock (field) of ours. Although I'd assume the controlling software would have good route planning, probably driven by drones doing weed spotting and NDVI/biomass analysis I'd also like to know more about the kind of infrastructure you'd need to support autonomous operations, because if they're not autonomous they still a step behind current farm equipment. Interesting how the WSJ and BBC articles contradict each other, one claiming plans are inexpensive while the other claiming they are. We use planes to complement our machinery, and they definitely aren't prohibitively expensive, and have far more use than just spraying chemical.
- beachstartup 11y agoat 15k versus the cost of a helicopter or plane i think the solution is to simply buy a fleet of however many you need.
- nmrm2 11y agoThis introduces a coordination problem that is easy in principle (just like concurrency on a multicore machine is easy in principle).
- fanquake 11y agoSo our current sprayer covers ~70ha/hr. That means we need a fleet of 18 drones to match it. That's 270k + the associated inferstructure costs. If there not fully autonomous you'll also need to pay someone $30-$40/hr to stand around an continually refill, program and move them from paddock to paddock. As well as ensure there aren't miss sprays, crashes, spray drift onto neighbour paddocks etc. However given the flight time is <20 minutes you'll need far more than 1 person for that, maybe 2 or 3. We can hire a spray plane for $12/ha, or a contract sprayer (self propelled boom) for slightly less than that.
- nmrm2 11y agoHow long would it take to cover a single paddock using more standard techniques (manned aerial or ground-based)?