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Drones don't need to be battery operated - but, I agree that there is no reason to use them in fields which are already designed for vehicle access with semi-st
by bri3d 6y ago
Drones don't need to be battery operated - but, I agree that there is no reason to use them in fields which are already designed for vehicle access with semi-standardized dimensions.
- eloff 6y agoIf they're fuel powered drones, they need to refuel. Plus that's potentially expensive to operate depending how many you need and how heavy they are.
- GauntletWizard 6y agoThere's probably something to be said for hard-wired drones here. The weight of the cable is something you have to contend with, but with a physical wire you can run a larger drone longer.
- eloff 6y agoHow is that better than a wheeled drone dragging a giant orange extension cord behind it? I'm not sure that's a great idea either, but flying brings more problems than it solves in this problem space.
- GauntletWizard 6y agoGiven that the plants are on the ground, I imagine not sweeping over them with an extension cable would be an obvious advantage. Still, you could work with suspended powerlines as easily for the big-box drone as with tractors, which brings me to another (probably dumb) question: Why has nobody built a landline electric tractor?
- ravel-bar-foo 6y agoFarmers sweep things along the field all the time. The standard farming sprinkler is supplied by pipes / hoses which are bridged above crop height between wheeled towers. As the spinkler works its way in a circle on the field around the water supply, the towers roll over a negligible amount of crop.
- drdaeman 6y ago> landline electric tractor Well, there are some robots that travel on aerial lines, typically used for cable inspection. Here's a quick search result: https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/expliner-robot-inspects-high-voltage-lines https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robo...