I wrote a blog back in 2008 [http://abovecapricorn.blogspot.com.au/search/label/unmanned%20aircraft] about the serious potential for using a drone [or unmanned aerial vehicle - UAV] in the rural sector.
I see tremendous potential for both smaller and larger rural properties to be able to deploy these types of vehicles to monitor fences, animal herds, watering points, irrigation canals, monitoring of feral animals eg camels........the potential uses are really only up to the imagination.
The link to the article on the ABC web site provides some real world uses right here in Australia, right now, in 2012.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-21/drone-journalism-takes-off/3840616?WT.svl=news4
And the cost is now approaching or may have decreased already for some operators that the concept is worth testing on their own properties.
A number of Australian companies already have commercially used equipment - real estate, mining and so on. See - http://www.cybertechuav.com.au/ as an example, but there are others. Equipment costs are around the same as a small car, and up in proce for more sophisticated equipment, although these costs are falling as the technology develops.
There are even high school competitions in Australia for UAVs, and have been now for some years!!
In the UK, some commercial farms are aleady using these UAVs to assist with management of precision agriculture and aerial inspections of crop performances, developing maps of individual paddocks during the growing season and combining the data with yield monitoring [for example header yield monitoring] to assist with economic performance improvement.
What ideas and role is seen for their use in the NT pastoral and rural scene?
UPDATE - 24 February
CSIRO are using a drone to complete a project on marine rubbish on beaches around Australia. Reported in the news today.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/eye-in-sky-filming-our-rubbish-shame/story-e6frfro0-1226280052411
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Now that is actually a very cool idea for how to use drones in the civilian sector in a productive way. Although I actually just read on another blog that drones may be used in the EU as an enforcement mechanism to prevent cheating under their CAP program, which seemed a bit spooky. It is true though, drones are becoming much more widely available, one can now wak into a store such as Brookstone and buy a reasonably sophisticated one off the shelf.
Post a Comment