In Massachusetts, American Robotics, an industrial drone developer specializing in agricultural automation, unveiled a self-charging, self-managing drone system capable of autonomously carrying out daily scouting missions.
Traditional scouting techniques, including first-generation and consumer drones, are inadequate at detecting plant stress early enough to offset the billions of dollars of lost yields. These methods are often time-consuming, complicated and uneconomical. To improve agricultural decision-making, optimize inputs and maximize yields, automation must be delivered in a reliable industrial solution.
Scout delivers this automation in a turn-key package consisting of an autonomous drone with visual and multispectral cameras and a weatherproof drone station which handles housing, charging, data processing and data transfer to the farmer’s location. Once installed within a farmer’s field, it requires no manual intervention to plan, fly and manage the drone operations. The system has already been deployed in a range of agricultural locations across the United States this summer.