Dear Manoj Gupta,

Agricultural Drones Relatively cheap drones with advanced sensors and imaging capabilities are giving farmers new ways to increase yields and reduce crop damage. “drones” means to Kunde and the growing number of farmers like him is simply a low-cost aerial camera platform: either miniature fixed-wing airplanes or, more commonly, quadcopters and other multibladed small helicopters. These aircraft are equipped with an autopilot using GPS and a standard point-and-shoot camera controlled by the autopilot; software on the ground can stitch aerial shots into a high-¬resolution mosaic map. Whereas a traditional radio-¬controlled aircraft needs to be flown by a pilot on the ground, in Kunde’s drone the autopilot (made by my company, 3D Robotics) does all the flying, from auto takeoff to landing. Its software plans the flight path, aiming for maximum coverage of the vineyards, and controls the camera to optimize the images for later analysis.

The Benefits of Drones in Farming

Increase Yields

Find potentially yield limiting problems in a timely fashion.

Save Time

While all farmers know the value of scouting their crops few actually have time to cover the acres on foot.

Return on Investment

At an average of $2 per acre for a walking visual inspection or an aerial survey to take an image of crop fields, the  purchase of an aerial helicopter drone can be met quickly. In most operations, the  drones can be achieved in a crop season or less, leaving you owning a drone that reduces your operating costs and improves your crop yield by giving you the timely information you need for quick management intervention.

Ease of use

The drone  can be very complex to set-up and operate, but with our present standards we allow new operators to have confidence in operating from the beginning.

Integrated GIS mapping

Draw field borders for flight pattern

Crop Health Imaging

Seeing the true health of your field in a color contrast allows you to see how much sunlight is being absorbed by the crop canopy.

Failsafe - The Drone Flies Home

As an added safety net with the flip of switch your Precision Drone will return to its original take off location.

Regards,

Prem Baboo

I think drones are quite good for purpose of disease and pest i identification and  it will also be useful in ragged terrains that cannot be accessed easily. However, the use will be limited to only developed countries as most of the people in developing countries cannot afford.

NDVI is an index represents the vigorous of a crop. It ranges from -1 to 1, being less than 0 or 0 for water and bare soils; and 1 for vigorous vegetation. 

You can measure several crop parameters depending on the camera attached to the drone. They are getting so popular these days. You can get multispectral images ranging from visible to infrared and identify the crop health, water status, diseases and so on. The variation that cannot be captured by human eyes can be reflected in the images. Also, if you attach the infrared camera to the drone it can measure the canopy temperature depression, which gives the relative measure of stomatal opening, water status of the crop. It's a very important parameter to identify abiotic stress like drought or heat stress tolerance. Overall, use of a drone would be more precise, easier, cheaper and less time consuming than human labor, but, however, it comes with the cost, like the initial l cost of setting would be higher, time-consuming and requires technical guidance. 

quite useful, a tool used in precision farming