Data engineerSomali Chaterjiwasrecently awardeda grant to research better ways to integrate drones into farming.
She is working to incorporate machine learning applications and on-machine computation into drones used in agriculture.
It’s part of an effort to use drones to increase crop yields.
SimonSkafar / Getty Images
“The future is indeed in the data and what to make of the data.”
Under her plan, drones will determine their optimal trajectories, reducing wasted battery power and recharge time.
The system will turn on the devices to reduce energy consumption using on-unit intelligence.
Westend61 / Getty Images
Drones are alreadyused extensivelyin farming.
“Drones also allow for precision spot spraying of fields or aerial seeding of smaller fields.”
“Five years ago, a 15 to 20 minute flight time was considered standard,” he added.
“For the same, or lower, cost, current drones easily fly for 25 to 30 minutes.
In the same way, sensor prices have dropped 25-50% in that same time period.”
High-speed wireless 5G networks that are being rolled out could make drones even more useful.
“There is the potential for tremendous amounts of data generation enabled by 5G.
