scholarly journals Integrating Unmanned Aerial Systems Into the Crop Production System Through On-Farm Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Kevin Allan Adkins ◽  
Christen C. Bailey ◽  
Aspen E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Sustainable Operation ◽  
Aerial Systems ◽  
On Farm ◽  
Reflectance Data

Precision agriculture strives to manage variations in the field in order to increase yield while adapting input factors to preserve resources and decrease production costs. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are advancing precision agriculture by allowing for nondestructive and convenient, as well as cost and time efficient mapping of spatial variation in fields with higher spatial resolution than previous methods. However, while there is much anticipation regarding the potential role for UAS in precision agriculture, their role still requires additional application-based testing. The objective of this work was to explore how growers best integrate the UAS product into their farm workflow. Two on-farm investigations were undertaken with vegetable growers for the duration of a growing season. Combinations of two unique unmanned aircraft (UA) platforms fitted with two different multispectral sensors were used to gather spectral reflectance data. The investigations found that the UAS product enabled the growers to optimize their field management practices, while overcoming a labor shortage, and create a more sustainable operation.

scholarly journals Application of Unmanned Aerial Systems in Crop Production as an Aspect of Digitalization of the Agro-Industrial Complex

2021 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 01013
Author(s):  
Artyom Spiridonov
Keyword(s):  
Technological Process ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Economic Assessment ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Technological Parameters ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Aerial Systems

In this article the authors provide an economic assessment of the technology of using unmanned aircraft systems in digital agriculture and justify the optimal requirements for its main technological parameters. As a measure of comparative evaluation of various options for implementing the system, an estimate of the cost of performing the technological process of using pesticides, fertilizers and other agrochemicals in conditional price units is proposed. A multi-factor experiment was carried out and variants of a mathematical model describing the relationship between agrotechnological factors and the final resultant, expressed in the conditional cost of processing 1 Ha of agricultural land, were obtained. The optimal values of the parameters are obtained for various variants of fixing factors at the specified levels. The influence of the most significant agrotechnological factors on the cost of the technological process of using pesticides, fertilizers and other agrochemicals is shown. The values of factors that should be used in the development of new types of unmanned aerial vehicles to ensure their maximum demand in agriculture and economic efficiency are proposed.

scholarly journals CROP PRODUCTION COSTS, PROFITS, AND ECOSYSTEM STEWARDSHIP WITH PRECISION AGRICULTURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SCHIMMELPFENNIG
Keyword(s):  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Best Management ◽  
Empirical Estimates ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

AbstractEcosystem stewardship is an important goal of crop production management. The developing question has been the feasibility and profitability of best management practices (BMPs) associated with stewardship goals. Treatment-effects empirical estimates show that soybean crop ecosystem stewardship is likely to benefit from precision agriculture's (PA) information technologies to varying degrees. After accounting for the effect of overhead expenditures on technology adoption, and input costs on operating costs and profits, we show PA technologies also affect at least six BMPs. In one comprehensive framework, PA technologies affect profits, and improve crop production management through BMPs, with benefits for ecosystem stewardship.

scholarly journals Economics of autonomous equipment for arable farms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lowenberg-DeBoer ◽  
Kit Franklin ◽  
Karl Behrendt ◽  
Richard Godwin
Keyword(s):  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Crop Agriculture

AbstractBy collecting more data at a higher resolution and by creating the capacity to implement detailed crop management, autonomous crop equipment has the potential to revolutionise precision agriculture (PA), but unless farmers find autonomous equipment profitable it is unlikely to be widely adopted. The objective of this study was to identify the potential economic implications of autonomous crop equipment for arable agriculture using a grain-oilseed farm in the United Kingdom as an example. The study is possible because the Hands Free Hectare (HFH) demonstration project at Harper Adams University has produced grain with autonomous equipment since 2017. That practical experience showed the technical feasibility of autonomous grain production and provides parameters for farm-level linear programming (LP) to estimate farm management opportunities when autonomous equipment is available. The study shows that arable crop production with autonomous equipment is technically and economically feasible, allowing medium size farms to approach minimum per unit production cost levels. The ability to achieve minimum production costs at relatively modest farm size means that the pressure to “get big or get out” will diminish. Costs of production that are internationally competitive will mean reduced need for government subsidies and greater independence for farmers. The ability of autonomous equipment to achieve minimum production costs even on small, irregularly shaped fields will improve environmental performance of crop agriculture by reducing pressure to remove hedges, fell infield trees and enlarge fields.

scholarly journals Method to Characterize Potential UAS Encounters Using Open Source Data

Aerospace ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
Andrew Weinert
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Horizontal Distance ◽  
Geospatial Information ◽  
Open Source Data ◽  
Source Data ◽  
Aircraft Trajectories ◽  
Processing Techniques ◽  
Aerial Systems

As unmanned aerial systems (UASs) increasingly integrate into the US national airspace system, there is an increasing need to characterize how commercial and recreational UASs may encounter each other. To inform the development and evaluation of safety critical technologies, we demonstrate a methodology to analytically calculate all potential relative geometries between different UAS operations performing inspection missions. This method is based on a previously demonstrated technique that leverages open source geospatial information to generate representative unmanned aircraft trajectories. Using open source data and parallel processing techniques, we performed trillions of calculations to estimate the relative horizontal distance between geospatial points across sixteen locations.

scholarly journals Experimental Comparison of Direct and Active Throttle Control of a 7 kW Turboelectric Power System for Unmanned Aircraft

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 10608
Author(s):  
Johnathan Burgess ◽  
Timothy Runnels ◽  
Joshua Johnsen ◽  
Joshua Drake ◽  
Kurt Rouser
Keyword(s):  
Transient Behavior ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Experimental Comparison ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Operational Parameters ◽  
Turbine Engine ◽  
Control Scheme ◽  
Aerial Systems ◽  
Electric Loads

This article compares direct turbine throttle control and active turbine throttle control for a turboelectric system; the featured turboprop is rated for 7 kW of shaft output power. The powerplant is intended for applications in unmanned aerial systems and requires a control system to produce different amounts of power for varying mission legs. The most straightforward control scheme explored is direct turbine control, which is characterized by the pilot controlling the throttle of the turbine engine. In contrast, active control is characterized by the turbine reacting to the power demanded by the electric motors or battery recharge cycle. The transient response to electric loads of a small-scale turboelectric system is essential in identifying and characterizing such a system’s safe operational parameters. This paper directly compares the turbogenerator’s transient behavior to varying electric loads and categorizes its dynamic response. A proportional, integral, and derivative (PID) control algorithm was utilized as an active throttle controller through a microcontroller with battery power augmentation for the turboelectric system. This controller manages the turbine’s throttle reactions in response to any electric load when applied or altered. By comparing the system’s response with and without the controller, the authors provide a method to safely minimize the response time of the active throttle controller for use in the real-world environment of unmanned aircraft.

Development and Flight Validation of Proposed Unmanned Aerial System Handling Qualities Requirements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina M. Ivler ◽  
Kevin Truong ◽  
Declan Kerwin ◽  
Joel Otomize ◽  
Danielle Parmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Performance Standards ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Performance Standard ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Dynamic Scaling ◽  
Scoring Method ◽  
Handling Qualities ◽  
Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial systems, commonly known as drones, present new opportunities to perform autonomous tasks. Handling qualities requirements for manned vertical lift aircraft have been well defined and documented. The need to define handling qualities requirements for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to meet mission demands is of paramount importance for all potential operators and procurement agencies. One way to relate handling qualities specifications of large-scale manned and subscale unmanned aircraft is through Froude dynamic scaling. Froude dynamic scaling based on hub-to-hub distance has shown great promise in relating the natural frequencies of scaled multicopters. There have been recent efforts to develop a VTOL-UAS handling qualities standard by scaling mission task elements and rating their performance through a Trajectory, Tracking, and Aggression (TTA) score. This paper proposes a new performance standard adapted from the TTA scoring method, along with a modified Cooper–Harper scale as a VTOL-UAS handling qualities framework that is consistent with the spirit of Aeronautical Design Standard 33 (ADS-33). These newly proposed performance standards were then validated through simulation and flight testing on a small hexacopter UAS, flown at the University of Portland. A key outcome of this work is the flight verification of a key dynamic response metric, the disturbance rejection bandwidth, and associated validation of Froude scaling for predicted handling qualities metrics.

scholarly journals Weed Management in Cranberries: A Historical Perspective and a Look to the Future

Agriculture ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Weed Control ◽  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Weed Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Integrated Weed Management ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Hand Weeding ◽  
The Impact

Integrated weed management (IWM) has been part of cranberry cultivation since its inception in the early 19th century. Proper site and cultivar selection, good drainage, rapid vine establishment, and hand weeding are as important now for successful weed management as when the industry first started. In 1940, Extension publications listed eight herbicides (e.g., petroleum-based products, inorganic salts and sulfates) for weed control. Currently, 18 herbicides representing 11 different modes of action are registered for use on cranberries. Nonchemical methods, such as hand weeding, sanding, flooding, and proper fertilization, remain integral for managing weed populations; new tactics such as flame cultivation have been added to the toolbox. Priority ratings have been developed to aid in weed management planning. Despite many efforts, biological control of weeds remains elusive on the commercial scale. Evaluation of new herbicides, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), image analysis, and precision agriculture technology; investigation of other management practices for weeds and their natural enemies; utilization of computational decision making and Big Data; and determination of the impact of climate change are research areas whose results will translate into new use recommendations for the weed control of cranberry.

Detection of Conflicts Between ADS-B-Equipped Aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 2674 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-204
Author(s):  
John H. Mott ◽  
Zachary A. Marshall ◽  
Mark A. Vandehey ◽  
Mike May ◽  
Darcy M. Bullock
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Sensor Technology ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Aircraft Flight ◽  
Flight Operations ◽  
Aerial Systems ◽  
Operational Simplicity

Versatile unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms have grown significantly in popularity by virtue of their low cost relative to manned aircraft, high performance, and operational simplicity. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently regulates the operating altitudes, speeds, weights, pilot qualifications, and locations of drones, a lack of capacity and technology prohibits sufficient enforcement of these restrictions. To assess the frequency and severity of manned and unmanned aircraft separation incidents, and to examine the emerging sensor technology available to facilitate such assessment, flight operations in controlled airspace around Orlando Melbourne International Airport (KMLB) were monitored. One sensor system deployed at KMLB reported UAS locations, altitudes, and flight durations, while a second system reported manned aircraft positions, altitudes, and timestamps using ADS-B signals. Evaluation of flight operations data in the vicinity of KMLB revealed eight potential drone incursions over a 2-week period. Aircraft flight paths were retroactively tracked to map these unmanned and manned aerial conflicts; aircraft identification information was also researched to contextualize the incidents. The frequency and magnitude of identified events suggest the need for additional research to further explore the problem scope and potential solutions.

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