The world of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones has been the playing ground of security institutions for many years. Even though remote controlled UAVs have been around for a long time, the cost and complexity of miniaturized avionics made it prohibitively expensive to automate such small platforms. In the last few years this has changed dramatically. Commercialisation and mass production of cheap small avionics together with advances in software allowing three dimensional vision and remote image interpretation make it possible now to build a drone that can do centimetre precision spatial surveys on a surprisingly small budget. This opens a slew of possibilities in the application of precision agriculture.

1. Drones on the Horizon
New frontiers for precision agriculture
Etienne Labuschagne
ESRI South Africa

2. The History of Drones
▪A military past:
▪ First use of “UAVs” : 1849
▪ WWI – saw the first Radio Controlled Aircraft
▪ Today “Drones” are synonymous with military
hardware

3. A Peaceful Future!
▪ Time to turn the Swords in to Plough Shares.
▪ TheTechnologies that makes this possible
▪ The platform
▪ The sensors
▪ The processing

4. The Platform
▪RC Hardware
▪Compact Miniature Avionics

5. The Sensors
▪Still Cameras
▪ True Colour
▪ Multispectral for NDVI
▪Video Cameras
▪ High Definition
▪ LiveVideo
▪LIDAR

6. The Processing
▪ Powerful Processing on your home computer
▪ 3D Stereoscopic imaging
▪ GeoreferencedAerial Photos
▪ Powerful GIS Systems

7. Application in Agriculture?
▪An Eye in the Sky
▪An accurate “Picture” of the Ground
▪Powerful box ofTools
▪Centimetre Precision
▪Crop Monitoring
▪Change Monitoring

8. The Drones are Here!
▪These are the Drones you are looking
for…
▪… and they are here to help.

9. WithThanks