This volume responds to the growing interest in adopting aerial robots (UAVs, or drones) for agricultural crop production, which are revolutionizing farming methods worldwide. The book provides a detailed review of 250 UAVs that examines their usefulness in enhancing profitability, yield, and quality of crop production. Recent trends indicate an increase in agricultural drone production and use. Millions of dollars have been invested in start-ups that produce agro-drones in the past several years. North America, Europe, China, and the Far East have excelled in offering a large number of UAV models. Some of them are versatile, a few are specific, and many of them are low cost. With so many drone models (over 1200) available, how do farmers and agricultural specialists choose the models best for them? This compendium examines the most useful drones and provides the pertinent details about each drone, its producer, cost incurred, and its pros and cons. It covers their technical specifications, suitability for various purposes, previous performances in farms, and possible benefits to farmers. It covers fixed-wing drones, fixed-winged (hybrid) VTOL helicopters, multi-copters, tilted-wing drones, etc. The book includes a few drones meant more for military or other purposes (e.g. recreation/fun) but that could be easily modified and adapted for the farming sector. The reviews compare activities among the UAVs, such aerial imagery of crops, ability to provide spectral analyses to collect useful data about a crop’s growth patterns, and how they can be used to gauge crop canopy temperature (i.e. water stress index), determine grain maturity, and much more.

Unmanned Aerial Systems in Agriculture: Eyes Above Fields bridges the gap between knowledge of concept and real-world use and operations of UASs in agri-production. Based on a valuable combination of themes presented at the 13th European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment (EFITA) and supplemented by targeted invited articles of key-scientists, this book presents a full-spectrum view of the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for agricultural applications. It integrates dispersed knowledge in the field, providing a holistic approach regarding UAVs and other UAS and their use in sustainable decisions. The integrated approach of the book provides a fresh look on contemporary agriculture-related issues, following precision farming approaches, by educating on a range of different issues of remote sensing and its use in agriculture. Furthermore, the operational planning aspects for UAS in agriculture focus part of the book provides information that is missing from other resources.

This book showcases how new and emerging technologies like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are trying to provide solutions to unresolved socio-economic and environmental problems. Unmanned vehicles can be classified into five different types according to their operation. These five types are unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles (operating on the surface of the water), unmanned underwater vehicles, and unmanned spacecraft. Unmanned vehicles can be guided remotely or function as autonomous vehicles. The technology has a wide range of uses including agriculture, industry, transport, communication, surveillance and environment applications. UAVs are widely used in precision agriculture; from monitoring the crops to crop damage assessment. This book explains the different methods in which they are used, providing step-by-step image processing and sample data. It also discusses how smart UAVs will provide unique opportunities for manufacturers to utilise new technological trends to overcome the current challenges of UAV applications. The book will be of great interest to researchers engaged in forest carbon measurement, road patrolling, plantation monitoring, crop yield estimation, crop damage assessment, terrain modelling, fertilizer control, and pest control.

Farm fields can span hundreds of acres. With so much area to cover, checking crops and livestock can be difficult. But with an agricultural drone, this job becomes much simpler. In this e-book young readers will discover how drones help farmers maximize efficiencies and bring abundant harvests

Increasing crop productivity is a challenge as old as human history. Advancements in technology have allowed farmers to produce ever-increasing amounts of food on a given amount of land. With the world's population expected to reach roughly nine billion by 2050 (United Nations 2013), the demand for food will require increasingly improved methods of agricultural production. One of these potential methods is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor crop health and identify potential issues. This thesis will explore how current stakeholders plan to utilize this technology and the perceived value they believe it will deliver across the various phases of the crop cycle. This thesis begins by reviewing modem precision agriculture management practices and discussing how remote sensing plays a role in improving the efficiency of these types of farming methods. It also identifies a number of challenges facing the industry to include the impact of current regulations on the market. This thesis develops a stakeholder value network that clarifies the tangible and intangible value exchanges between the focal organization and its stakeholders. As well as constructing an OPM (Object Process Methodology) model to describe the system and demonstrate the stakeholder interactions and system process and sub-process decomposition. It also provides visual display of how the value is delivered across these processes. The final aspect of the research for this thesis is to identifies the lead users for these systems and determines how they measure the value of the data provided by UAVs for remote sensing and crop management decisions in support of farming operations. The value proposition for the various crop phases and the ideal uses cases discussed by lead users in this thesis may be used to guide future research in agriculture technology development, and drive further innovation in the emerging field of commercial unmanned aerial system use.

This report summarizes the findings of a collaborative effort to map and assess irrigated areas in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. The study was conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) and the Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (LDARD), as part of the DAFF-supported ‘Revitalization of irrigation in South Africa’ project. Based on a combination of Landsat and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data, previous irrigated area mapping exercises carried out by DAFF and three-field ground truthing (GT) surveys, a total of 1.6 million hectares (Mha) of cropland were identified, with 262,000 ha actually irrigated in the 2015 winter season. The study also found that only 29% of all land equipped with center pivots was actually irrigated.

This important volume provides a plethora of information on aerial vehicles and their possible roles in revolutionizing agricultural procedures through spectral analysis of terrains, soils, crops, water resources, diseases, floods, drought, and farm activities. There are several semi-autonomous and autonomous (robotic) aerial vehicles that are examined for their efficiency in offering detailed spectral data about agrarian regions and individual farms. Among them, small drone aircrafts such as fixed-winged and copter models have already caught the imagination of farmers. They are spreading fast in every nook and corner of the farm world. However, there are many more aerial robots that are utilized in greater detail during farming. In this volume, the focus is on aerial vehicles such as parafoils, blimps, aerostats, and kites, and how they are being evaluated for use in experimental farms and fields. A few aerial vehicles, such as robotic parafoils, have been adopted to procure aerial spectral data and visual imagery to aid agronomic procedures. These and other aerial robots are expected to change and improve the use of the sky in agricultural endeavors and the way we conduct agronomic procedures in the very near future. This volume is a timely resource for agricultural researchers, professors and students, and the general public who are interested in aerial vehicles.