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UC Davis Investigates Using Helicopter Drones For Crop Dusting
cylonlover writes "Researchers at University of California, Davis, in cooperation with the Yamaha Motor Corporation, are testing UAV crop dusting on the Oakville Experimental Vineyard at the UC Oakville Station using a Yamaha RMax remote-controlled helicopter. The purpose is to study the adaptation of Japanese UAV crop dusting techniques for US agriculture, but not all the hurdles they face are technological."
Great! Now the CEO doesn't have to get out of his office, he can just have a robot crop-dust the cubes for him.
The non-technological hurdles are exactly what you'd expect - government regulations, air-traffic restrictions and (restrictions on) emergency landing procedures.
Doesn't really seem like a problem - except in california, where realistic, useful legislation rarely passes on a permanent basis.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
This sounds like a decent application- using GPS this could be completely automated.
love is just extroverted narcissism
..ten years ago - http://www.gizmag.com/go/2440/ and http://rmax.yamaha-motor.com.au/
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
hackers just wait for some to hijack one and crop dust over area loaded with people.
I love th3e term "crop dusting". Whoever invented it deserves their spin-doctoring millions. When I think of "dusting". I think of my grandma using a mild feather duster to remove a bit of dust from her ornaments. I would never think of soaking a field with a few tons cancer-causing chemicals. Hooray for semantics!
We have all these amazing advances in technology, but all we ever want to use them for is surreptitiously farting on people. The world never changes.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Unfortunately for large operators such as airlines, GA is, for the most part, where you experienced pilots from. And airlines in many parts of the world are already experiencing massive pilot shortages.
That pool has already dwindled with the huge downturn in night freight and charter ops. The end of manned ag flying will just add to it.
In California, you have to complete a two year apprenticeship to become certified for aerial application.
This is not so much about flying an airplane (which presumably a commercially rated pilot can manage).
It is mostly about handling pesticides, etc. I have not looked but my understanding is that other states have similar requirements.
So even if UC Davis proves the concept, I doubt it relieves the operator of being state certified.
http://www.regroup.com/welcome/content/uploads/2012/10/UCDavis_pepperspray.jpg
I work for an Ag company in the Pacific Northwest and I can tell you that while there is a use for UAV technology in agriculture, it is not an end all replacement for spraying and other applications. It lacks the payload to be efficient with all farms, many are too large to be sprayed in total with such a small device. Also the article seems to vilify the tractorand current methods to a certain degree, when in fact precision agriculture has helped implement gps, autosteer, and autoboom technology (among many other things) into modern agriculture already and has drastically increased the precision with which we apply fertilizers and crop protectants. I also don't understand why we are wasting money on research for this particular device when it already has decades of use and data available, especially when looking at spray patterns from helicopters since those are already used for this application and have been for over sixty years. UAVs will be a great asset for mapping, collecting field data, and making applications to small crops, but it will just be another small tool, and is not the end all solution for precision ag.
Be aware that Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide is designed to exterminate all plant life except their GMO animal hybrids. It does this through its main component glyphosate interfering with the shikimate pathway present in all plant life, including the intestinal flora in your gut which is essential to human health and even survival.
Sure, flying just above ground level and jumping over water pipes and flying under power lines while crop dusting is fun and sexy ... but only if you avoid thinking about your role in the destruction of the biosphere.
There's a reason why we are currently living in the sixth mass extinction of biodiversity. The single biggest factor is herbicides and insecticides, because they are designed specifically for destruction of local biodiversity, which unfortunately spreads. Deforestation and CO2 and global warming and all that jazz are barely secondary causes.
And when biodiversity reaches its tipping point, the whole house of cards that is the biosphere collapses. In case what this means is not clear to those who don't follow the bio sciences, it means no more you.
Don't cheerlead crop dusting.
There's a shot in the video attached to TFA showing the RMax flying sideways at over 100 feet.
UC Davis spokesman, Mr Wesp Rays Tudents, clarified that using campus policeman to spray on protesting students sitting on the side walk provoked too many protests and parodies. They believe the urban remote controlled helicopter would be a more humane approach and protect the identity of the policeman doing the spraying.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"but not all the hurdles they face are technological" Wow, I really wouldn't expect that. /sarcasm
I understand this is probably a dull, dangerous job, but do we have to automate every line of work out of existence?