Specialists and students of the Moscow Aviation Institute have developed two unmanned aircraft systems for agriculture – Agrodron and Agroscout. The work is carried out on the basis of the centre Unmanned Aerial Vehicles of MAI within the framework of the strategic project Aeromobility. The project is being implemented in accordance with the MAI development model within the framework of the Priority-2030 programme, the MAI press service said.
The Agroscout system is designed for automatic inspection of agricultural fields and assessment of the state of the land by photo images with the use of artificial intelligence.
“The drone, equipped with a high-resolution camera, flies up to a certain area, descends to a height of one metre and takes a few photos,” Yuri Bukharev, director of the MAI BLA centre, describes the principle of Agroscout’s work. – Upon completion of the overflight and shooting, it transmits the information to the system, where special software with the use of artificial intelligence processes it, analyses the condition of crops, identifies the presence of weeds and so on, and gives its conclusion and recommendations”.
The drone is equipped with sensors to prevent collisions with obstacles and can perform an overflight manoeuvre if detected. The drone’s internal system allows it to autonomously follow a predetermined route even in case of loss of communication with the ground control centre.
A prototype of the Agroscout system has already been created. Now the specialists of the UAV Centre of MAI are carrying out the final work on the preparation of the vehicle and integration with the customer’s software to pass the stage and move on to testing in the UAS in real conditions.
Another project, the Agrodron unmanned aerial system, is designed for high-precision spraying of plant protection products such as pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. It also allows spraying fields with organic fertilisers, fertiliser, growth hormones and other products in liquid form. Agrodron can also be used for aerial seeding.
The first prototype has been assembled, and software has been developed for the ground control centre, which builds and optimises drone routes. In the coming months, it is planned to start field trials of the UAS.
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