Jim Love prefers using the term Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, as opposed to drones.
“Everybody always thinks about the negative side … you think surveillance, you bomb people, you kill groups of people,” Love stated. “Drones have a very negative connotation. Whereas when we talk about what we’re going to do in the civilian arena, it should be very positive.”
Love, a spokesman for Beck's Hybrids and a farmer near Lebanon, spoke about the fast-growing UAV market and how it applies to agriculture at the TTK Technology in Ag Field Day at the Merom Conference Center on Wednesday.
Some of the positive usages include search and rescue, filmmaking, pipeline surveillance, police, fire re-entry, mining, delivery, even flying AEDs (defibrillators).
Agricultural applications include scouting, data acquisition and field operations, according to Love.
“We’re looking to gain information from a higher vantage point, that oftentimes is very challenging to get,” Love said. “It gives us some insight into what’s going on in a field, whether it be Mother Nature-driven or something we’ve done ourselves. So, this is just one more tool in that toolbox to try to even out some of those fields.
“A lot of folks that have got products and services that fit the agricultural arena see that there is great profit to be made there,” he added. “We’ll see these used for nitrogen management, in creating some management zones, looking at drainage, populations and diseases.”
Under current Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, it’s illegal for commercial use of a UAV, including agriculture.
“But the FAA is working very diligently to bring forth some rules that will fit within safety parameters to keep the airspace safe and also make it so we can get the benefit out of it,” he said. “Right now they’ve got out for comment a ruling that looks very good, very favorable.”
Love was of the opinion the FAA had been dragging its feet with issuing UAV guidelines. He joked it took the Jan. 26 incident of a drone, flown by an employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which accidentally landed on the White House grounds to speed up the process.
Coincidentally, or not, Love noted, about three weeks later the FAA guidelines were put out for public comment.
In summary, the UAVs must be under 55 pounds, fly under 500 feet altitude, travel less than 100 mph, be flown away from aircraft, with visual line of sight and no night flying.
“That seems to be a workable solution,” Love said.
Love demonstrated two UAVs outside the MCC for the approximately two dozen conference attendees. One was a miniature helicopter, about $1,200, the other a more sophisticated foam aircraft, about $25,000.
With the latter aircraft having GPS capabilities, Love entered an approximately 10-minute flight plan with a laptop computer, which concluded with an on-target smooth landing.
Both UAVs demonstrated have camera capability, with Love saying computer programs are available to “stitch,” or overlay, several photos into one cohesive photo.
“The software finds the similarities within those images, stitches them together and throws away everything it doesn’t need,” he explained.
During his presentation, Love showed a video of a mini-helicopter worth about $100,000, with one remote operator, spraying a rice paddy in China. He said a similar practical usage in the U.S. might be vineyards, many of which are not easily accessible for spraying.
“It’s conceivable one guy with a trailer not any bigger than you would haul a lawn mower on, could travel from vineyard to vineyard,” he said.
Love pointed out many foreign countries have an early advantage in the UAV technology due to fewer government regulations.
“We aren’t doing what guys haven’t done for years … You’ll hear about a guy who goes to an airport, hires a local pilot for a couple hours and they go up and get a birdseye view,” Love said. “It’s just amazing how much you can see in these fields and how much you can learn.”