Applications of Drones in Smart Agriculture

Abstract

The application of drones in agriculture has opened-up a new horizon to increase the agriculture outputs and real-time access to high-quality information. Crop monitoring has become a simple task with the emergence of drone-based data collection, replacing the traditional labor-intensive and time-consuming data collection. Drones can assist in precision agriculture by performing variety of agricultural tasks including soil health monitoring, seed planting, fertilizer application, crop stress management, irrigation schedule planning, weed management, crop yield management, and weather analysis. Drones with infrared, multispectral, and hyperspectral sensors can analyze crop health and soil conditions precisely and accurately. Spraying drones can help to reduce operator exposure while also improving the capacity to distribute chemicals in a timely and spatially resolved manner. Farmers can save time and water by recognizing areas that need a lot of water. At the same time, precision farming techniques can increase crop yield and quality. Drones can offer various solutions in many areas of agriculture and allied sciences such as yield monitoring, scouting and bird scaring in horticulture, crop health monitoring, forest diseases mapping, monitoring fish farm and livestock population, and mapping feed and fodder grasses in livestock management. The plethoras of drone-based applications in agriculture on spatiotemporal scales make it a promising futuristic technology to address the challenge of growing food insecurity.