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Application of Drone Technology towards Economic Benefit of
Southwest Georgia
Atin SinhaAlbany State UniversityAlbany, GA
Civilian Applications of Drones
Entertainment Industry (movie making)
Agricultural (monitoring crop health)Disaster Response & Fire FightingAssessment of Property DamageSearch & RescueLaw EnforcementMapping and Ecological StudyShowcasing Properties in Real Estate
Laws governing Civilian Drone Flights
Limited up to 500’ in rural areas and up to 1000’ from top of tall buildings in congested areas
No commercial benefits can be realized as a result of the drone flight
Line of sight onlyNo night flyingCannot operate within 5 miles of
an airport
Project Goal
To engage undergraduate students to develop an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a sensory device to capture still or video images of large farmlands in visible and near infra-red wavelengths to obtain a composite vegetative index map by converting digital data to numerical values for precision agriculture (timely application of pesticide etc.)
Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI)
Most widely used index to identify vegetated areas and their condition
Obtained from multispectral (visible and near infrared) remote sensing data
Also used to quantify photosynthetic capacity of plant canopies
where VIS and NIR stand for the spectral reflectance measurements acquired in the visible (red) and near-infrared regions, respectively
NDVI map of British Isles in June 2003 and November 2003 (from NOAA AVHRR)
Breakdown of TasksAcquire or build a suitable droneLearn flying and controlling the drone for
safe operationAttach a camera to take HD videoPerform autonomous flight operations in
a pre-determined routeAcquire multi-spectral still or video
cameraAcquire necessary software to convert
the digital data to NDVI map of the terrain
Criterion of Selection of an Agricultural Drone
Quick repair/replacement of damaged parts
Battery life / Flight timePayload (single/multiple camera)
capabilityPortability in moving from one operation
to nextSafety and ease of operationInterchangeability of payloadEnvironmental Considerations (prevailing
wind and temperature)
Fixed Wing vs. VTOL Drone
Fixed Wing High speed, larger area covered, bigger
payloadIncreased battery life (typically 30 to 60 min)Launching device necessaryVery low altitude flight is not possible
VTOL (Quad/Hex/Octacopter)Low speed, precision flight, but payload is
limitedLimited battery life (12 to 20 min maximum)Vertical take-off & landing possible from small
clearing (as small as 50 sq ft) surrounded by trees
Available Quadcopter
Parrott AR Drone 2.0 ($299)
DJI Phantom 2 vision + V3.0 with camera, 3 axis gimble ($1058)
DJI Phantom for Go-Pro HD camera ($399 + around $400 for camera)
3D Robotics IRIS + ($750 + around $400 for Go-Pro camera + $210 for gimble)
Parrott AR Drone 2.0
3D Robotics IRIS +
Integrated Multi-spectral Camera & Software Solution
DRS Technologies Tamarisk 320 ($2300, 60g)Tamarisk 640 ($6100, 95 g)
Tetracam ADC Lite ($3795, 200g)ADC Micro ($3795, 90g)ADC Snap ($5495, 90g)
Camera & software acquired separately
Point and Shoot Cannon Powershot camera converted by MaxMax.com with IR filter ($800, 231g)
Agisoft Photoscan Stitching /Mosaic Software ($549)
QGIS.org Vegetation Index viewing software (Free)
Tasks yet to be completed
Design and build a harness for the camera to attach it to IRIS (just concluded)
Fly IRIS with multispectral camera to capture photos
Acquire software (Agisoft-photoscan) for stitching / viewing and get familiar with it
Obtain a mosaic of the field by the stitching the photos together
Generate NDVI map of the field by the viewing software (QGIS)
IRIS Flying with Modified Cannon Powershot
Vegetative Index (NDVI) Map
Acknowledgement:
The ongoing work is being funded by a training grant from Georgia Space Grant Consortium, sponsored by NASA