Agribotix Providing Solutions

Agribotix Providing Solutions

Agribotix Providing Solutions. I’m Greg Martin with Colorado Ag Today.

For some time now the promise of an explosion of drone technology has been just out of our grans but recent FAA proposals should get drones in the air. Tom McKinnon, founder and chief technology officer with Agribotix in Boulder is a drone-enabled software company that provides advanced imaging and analysis for precision agriculture.

McKINNON: We were fearful that they would have been quite a bit more Draconian so that’s the upside. The downside is they’re proposed federal rules and they’ve got to go through the process and it probably won’t be for 18 months that they take effect. Right now what you can do to operate is to get an exemption, a Section 333.

With the use of drones farmers can easily get a snapshot of their crops.

McKINNON: The corn fields are so huge that in theory somebody could walk around and see where it needs fertilizer and where it doesn’t but in practice that’s totally impractical. We can fly that field in half and hour and create a map that tells the grower where the corn needs fertilizer and where it doesn’t.

Of course drones are not limited to corn but just about any commodity. McKinnon says that really anyone can operate their drone.

McKINNON: They’re fully autonomous flight. We create the mission on the ground station and it does the rest in terms of creating the mission by itself. Hit another button and it uploads that to the plane by telemetry radio and the things taking off and it’s flying it’s mission, comes back and lands and all the pictures are on the SD card in the camera.

The data can then be interpreted as necessary. For more information, contact Agribotix.com.

And that’s Colorado Ag Today. I’m Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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