AUVSI Atlanta Chapter Ag Conference Prepares for New Era of Farming

The conference included an AirRobot AR-100 flight demonstration from the Georgia Tech Research Institute. AUVSI photo.

By Danielle Lucey



Agriculture is big business in Georgia, and the sooner airspace integration pans out, many think unmanned systems will play a large role in that industry. 



That was the tone set by the AUVSI Atlanta Chapter’s Unmanned Systems in Agriculture Conference 2014, which took place this week in Tifton, Ga. 



Speakers covered their companies’ approaches to the impending possibility of an unmanned agriculture market, new technologies on the horizon and just how important farming is in the Peach State. 



Agriculture is a $13.9 billion industry for Georgia, said speaker Bo Warren, director of the Georgia Center of Innovation for Agribusiness. It leads the nation in poultry production, produces enough cotton to make 345 million denim jeans a year and harvests 49 percent of all the peanuts in the United States. And the role of agriculture will only get more important in the coming years, he said. 



“Why is agriculture important? … In the past 50 years our world population has doubled to 6.8 billion people,” he said. “World population is expanding about 3.3 people per second, so that’s 300 people every 90 seconds. By 2050, our world population will have grown by more than 2.5 billion people, … and farmers will need to produce more food in the past 50 years than they have in the past 10,000 years combined.”



And technology will be key to how to create more food on less land with fewer resources, he said. 



The airspace industry is also key to Georgia he said, since it makes up 5 percent of the state’s workforce and 6 percent of its GDP. He says Georgia’s six centers of innovation that fall under the Georgia Department of Economic Development should be able to leverage its agribusiness and aerospace innovation centers so the agriculture and unmanned systems industries can cross-pollinate. 



Ben Worley of Vision Services Group–Unmanned, discussed what the business model of UAS operations on a farm might look like. VGS formed in Atlanta in 2013 and is focusing on how to provide data services to farmers gathered through unmanned aircraft. 



Using unmanned systems is more than just flying an aircraft, he said. It involves maintaining a system through its lifespan, which can be increased with safety and training. 



“People tend to overlook these requirements when they are using this technology,” he said.



He said that unmanned aircraft could be applied to many industries, like forestry and public safety, but hat agriculture is “one of the largest potential uses out there.”



“You have to look at it as UAS is a tool. It’s a means to an end,” he said. … “The point is not the UAV itself; the point is to be able to apply that technology to be able to make a better decision.”



VSG’s approach, once the market opens up is to be a full-service operations provider, so farmers can just focus on the data from unmanned aircraft, but not the upkeep of owning one. 



“We see that as a lot of consumers either are so busy with their permanent jobs, … and so for them this makes a great fit,” he said. “You’re not having to expend resources unnecessarily.”



New Technology on the Way



Outside of agriculture, new technology could still be a huge factor in shaping agriculture’s future. 



Doug Britton from Georgia Tech’s Agricultural Technology Research Program discussed how automated systems technology often used in manufacturing could be leveraged to streamline Georgia’s booming poultry business. 



Currently, chickens are deboned on the line manually, a significant task, he says, that has yet to be matched by an automated system. However, the task is also a repetitive one that comes with safety hazards. Also, several processing facilities do not have enough personnel to keep up.



His research has been trying to build an imaging system that can guide a blade down the internal structure of a chicken through the joint, which is challenging because each bird is unique had as a different size and weight, he says. To answer some of the issues with added technology and agriculture, he says that Georgia Tech is looking into partnerships to pursue grand challenges in agriculture, much in the same way DARPA does for robotics. 



David Dorhout from Dorhout R&D talked about his company’s robot Aquarius, which is designed to work inside of greenhouses to aid in watering. 



“Greenhouses are actually a really harsh environment,” he said, saying as a new employee, he would get sunburned without realizing it. And making sure you water properly can be a high-stakes job, he says.



He worked on an engineering plant discovery group project, where each plant was worth around $1,000 and needed to be watered three or four times a day, including weekends. So greenhouse workers could take a break, he invented the Aquarius robot to do the watering in their place. 



The robot uses a moisture sensor that can reach into a pot of soil and determine a plant’s needs. It then can water a certain amount based on how much moisture the individual plant needs, or it can be programmed just to water a certain amount no matter what. 



“Some groups didn’t need that kind of precision, so another [method] was to just have a sentinel, representative pot,” he said. “You can save money that way.”



Adding more technology to farming, which is nothing new, could fundamentally change how it’s done, he added. It’s not uncommon for a farmer to set aside 10 percent of his land each year for new innovations and research. 



“What if we were able to create these machines that were able to carry out instructions from the farm so that they were able to make these farm decisions, plant by plant, and adapt over the season, allowing the farmer to focus on the business and the science of farming?” he said.