Researchers create app to help drones improve farm efficiency

Unmanned air Vehicles, Or drones, can help Farmers monitor THE State of the fields And orchards but data can be affected by THE position of THE sun. A the Web application developed has THE CU Davis Digital Agriculture Laboratory help Farmers And researchers find THE best time has fly For their date And location has avoid create Errors In data. Pictures courtesy of Digital Agriculture Laboratory

When stolen has THE RIGHT times, drones can help Farmers adapt has A changing the climate

Researchers has THE University of California, Davis, to have developed A the Web application has help Farmers And industry workers to use drones And other unmanned air Vehicles, Or drones, has generate THE best possible data. By portion Farmers to use resources more effectively, This advancement could help them adapt has A world with A changing climate that needs has food billions.

Partner Teacher Alireza Pourreza, director of THE CU Davis Digital Agriculture Laboratory And postdoctoral searcher Hamid Jafarbiglu, WHO recently completed her doctorate In biological systems engineering below Pourreza, designed THE When2Fly application has TO DO drones more competent And accurate. Specifically, THE platform help drone users avoid dazzling areas called hot spots that can ruin collection data.

Postdoc Hamid Jafarbiglu (center) flies A drone In THE field.

Drone users select THE date they plan has fly, THE type of camera they are using And their location either by selection A indicate on A map Or by enter contact details. THE application SO noted THE best times of that specific day has collect reframe data Since A drone.

Jafarbiglu And Pourreza, WHO East Also A CU Cooperative Extension specialist of agricultural mechanization, said that using This application For drone imagery And data collection East crucial has improve agriculture efficiency And mitigate agriculture carbon footprint. Reception THE best data — as What section of A orchard could need more nitrogen Or less water, Or What trees are be affected by disease — allow producers has allocate resources more effectively And effectively.

"In conventional reframe management, We manage THE entire field uniformly supposing each Single factory will produce A uniform Rising of yield, And they require A uniform Rising of to input, which East not A accurate assumption," said Pourreza. "We need has to have A preview In OUR crops' spatial variability has be able has identify And address problems timely And precisely, And drones are these amazing tools that are accessible has the producers, but they need has know how has to use them correctly."

Dispel THE solar noon belief

In 2019, Jafarbiglu was functioning has extract data Since air pictures of walnut And almond orchards And other speciality crops When he accomplished something was fake with THE data.

"No matter how precisely We calibrated all THE data, We were always not get GOOD results," said Jafarbiglu. "I took This has Alireza, And I said, 'I feel There is something additional In THE data that We are not aware of And that were not compensate for For.' I decided has check he everything."

Jafarbiglu porous through THE 100 terabytes of pictures collection on three years. He REMARK that After THE pictures had has been calibrated, there were blatant bright white tasks Or they were supposed has look flat And uniform.

But he I could not be A glare because THE sun was behind THE drone socket THE picture. SO Jafarbiglu revised literature going back has THE 1980s In research of other examples of This phenomenon. Not only did he find mentioned of he, but Also that researchers had invented A term For he: access point.