Are Drones going to replace ag Spraying Aircraft
 

Will drone kill off the ag aerial business. No booking, spray any time. You just need a a good digital 3D map of the property which most farms have these days anyway.

Not in our lifetime!

Booking! - Yes, you will need to make a booking. Without a doubt CASA approval required for Drone AOC, therefore bookings like any other Ag Op.
Anytime? - Not likely, spraying is subject to temperature and wind, therefore, only when suitable, just like with today's fixed wing and rotary sprayers.

When? it's happening now......... (watch video)

To start with spraying now has rates of at least 30 L/Ha and often more. To spray in commercial quantities you need capacity, not a 50 litre load. There is the technology now to make an Ag aircraft pilotless, fixedwing Ag aircraft are now worth up to 1 million, rotary to carry anything more than 1000 litres maybe 2 million. To make that aircraft pilotless you need another million in electronics and software.
Then you still have to pay an expert to fly the aircraft remotely who would no doubt charge more than an Ag pilots whose wages haven't gone up in 40 years.
The military have very capable pilotless aircraft with good useful loads, they pay 220 million each for such capable machines.
Yes it's possible, economics and reality make it unlikely anytime soon.

With a 'payload' of just 16 litres, I don't think it will replace an aircraft - and with existing battery technology I can't see an ability to scale up to a useful broadacre payload in the near future.

That said, I believe drones have a big future in agriculture. Certain chemicals can be applied at ultra low rates, but more interestingly, there is plenty of existing tech that allows very precise targeting. For example, instead of 'blanketing' a field with glyphosate (Roundup), ground rigs can now target individual weeds, reducing chemical use by up tp 90%. When this kind of tech is applied to drones, I think we'll see a revolution in aerial agriculture.

As others have said, it is already happening at small scale.

There are some significant players in this field (pun intended :O ):
https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/mo...spray-services

I can see it as a realistic tool for small farms.
For example Joe Smith has a ten acre property which has serrated tussock.
The granulated treatment for this is used at 15kg/hectare.
60 kgs does his whole property in a couple of hours.

`Not in our Lifetime'

Seem to recall someone said similar to Wilbur & Orville!

It’s certainly the way things will move ahead in the future.

Increasing coverage over a large area is easily achievable with smaller and reasonably inexpensive drones (in the grand scheme of things), deploying their payloads if they are operated in swarms. One pilot/operator could operate multiple drones at any one time.

Getting a CASA issued RePL and UOC is quite easy for anyone who has been around commercial aviation for a while. Most of the UOC applications are being administered by delegates which keeps things pretty easy by virtue of not having to directly deal with CASA, apart from paying administration fees
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When you consider an Ag Aircraft can go for $1million+, these drones are being sold by an Australian Distributor for $40k each with 8 batteries included so getting a bunch of them up at the same time wouldn't be a big stretch at all, not to mention the long term decrease in costs such as Maintenance, Fuel and Crew, you could easily convert a Pilot and an Ag Aircraft into 20 or 30 of these drones for hire. Develop a good truck to carry them and some ways to easily store and distribute batteries and liquids for when they return a crew of 2 can turn them around pretty damned quickly and cover a lot of hectares in a day. Being able to fly lower and having the down force of the props forcing the liquid down would mean they can probably take some slightly higher winds.

For those that have done ag, 1000L a load isn't unusual I believe but how much does your speed affect concentrations? My thinking is that by moving slower they might need lower dilutions. Of course it'll still be a big difference but still a difference that starts to shift the maths back. Of course there will be things that the real deal will do better for now but considering 10-20 years ago this was pie in the sky and now we have them being produced like this and getting better every year I think the smart companies will be looking to invest in this sort of tech sooner rather than later.

Possibly more use at the moment for monitoring crops and getting early warning of an outbreak ?

I’ve heard that drones have been used on crops to prevent frost damage, which was one task that helicopters have been used for in the past.

Chemicals are labeled to have minimum rates of application, you can't put them on lighter it's against the law. The bulk of chemicals rates are 30 litre/Ha total volume.
The usual spray capacity for aircraft now is between 1800 and 3000 litres.
Yamaha have been leasing commercial drones for years, their capacity is around 30 litres I think. They have not taken over contrary to previous predictions.

Genuinely interested in this-having been stood down for a bit now.


I don’t currently hold any qualifications in this field, but I have doubts of the legality of operating multiple drones single handed.

I assume some sort of master drone and slave drones setup. What would the fail safes for such an operation be?

1/ Unable to meet label droplet spectrum

2/ Unable to meet label volume

3/ Pattern test data does not exist

4/ Illegal to operate beyond line of sight

5/ Liability insurance - who is responsible

6/ Inability to respond to contingency *

7/ We have all seen drones "go west", that is, depart uncommanded never to be seen again. Given the serious nature of the payload this is undesirable.

8/ High spec (read mil spec) high cost drones have been shown to #7


* Scenario 1 - A primary school field trip arrives in the incorrect or adjacent (downwind) field. Unseen by the drone operator 1.2 km away at the opposite end of the field.

The product being applied gives those sprayed directly 20 minutes to live (give or take) assuming a certain body weight and no predisposed sensitivity.


The drone does what it is programmed to do. This does not include recognition of potential hazards or avoidance of harm to others.

Does that pass the "any reasonable person" test?

Bloody hell currawong, that's all pretty bleak way to look at it but I should point out that a fair bit of what you've described can either be worked through and is applicable to Aircraft now.
1. Is this not just a result of the nozzles used? Therefor just getting the right nozzles made to do the job would solve this?
2. Not sure what this means, could you explain further?
3. This can be accrued, it didn't exist before people started Spray with Ag Aircraft either presumably
4. Not Illegal, just not for the everyday person. It's called BVLOS and can be applied for with CASA, but more to the point an Operator could likely stay within LOS of these drones as they're not exactly travelling a massive distance considering their flight time
5. Drones are already being insured so sounds like this is already not really a factor
6. This is pretty ridiculous scenario*
7. Yeah, I've read about a bunch of Aircraft going way off track/disappearing/overflying destinations etc... Yeah, drones have been known to do this but then again so have Aircraft!
8. These High Spec Drones are also operating in extremely different environments, you're talking about Operators controlling them from a continent away with hundreds or thousands of miles range in a huge variety of Areas of Operation which is a vastly different scenario.

*scenario 1 - A primary school field trip arrives in the incorrect or adjacent (downwind) field. Unseen by the Pilot who is low and clearing a line of trees that they're adjacent to.

The product being applied gives those sprayed directly 20 minutes to live. I mean seriously, come on, this is just a ridiculous scenario. Possible? Yes, but no more so than say an Ag Aircraft hitting a power line and careening off into someone nearby or doing so in the act of take-off/landing.

Think you need to go do some reading before completely writing off Drone tech as it's coming whether you like it or as it appears you definitely do not.

Got me interested as well! Had a bit of a dig around and all the wording seems to revolve around operating "An" RPA so guessing they don't really have anything built in to allow people to easily control multiples which makes sense, there just isn't enough demand for them to warrant the expense of creating new or adjusting current legislation to allow it so anyone wanting to do this would have to apply for a dispensation which I'd dare would be a very costly exercise at the moment.

I'd suspect in the future this will change greatly but I'm very curious as to whether they perhaps just change the wording to maybe "RPA System" so therefore a Platform designed to operate multiple RPAs would be a system which then fairly easily fit into the current requirements as you currently nominate which models/types you're flying so this would fit within current requirements. Ie if you want to operate this then you just submit a variation form declaring the "DJI Agras T16 Multi Drone Platform" as what you want added and the rest really remains much the same. The other way is to make it an entirely extra Category or variation such as BLVOS and such is now.

Ixixly - I shall try to answer your questions, and thanks for taking an interest in a relatively obscure topic.

The label on a chemical drum is a legal document. It must be complied with. Essentially it is illegal to open that drum until that label is checked.

That label stipulates all the parameters acceptable to the regulator for the application for reasons of safety.

It will specify a droplet range required for aerial application. Say 300 + microns.(think drizzle/light rain) for reasons of drift mitigation.

For the product to work, a certain amount of droplets are required per square cm on the target.

Lets say insecticide so 20 droplets per square cm.

This will require, and the label will specify, a total spray volume in the order of 30 liters per hectare. (this varies between products)

Aircraft are designed around these specs.

A drone on the other hand, with the reduced capacity, will distribute in the order of 1 or 2 liters per hectare (or less) at maybe 80 microns(or less) (think fly spray aerosol) to attempt to achieve the 20 droplets per square cm.

This is contrary to the label instructions, read illegal.

The situation is worse for herbicides, generally requiring higher volumes and more droplets per square cm.

There is work going on attempting to change labels to legalise drone application.

In short, big droplets require big volumes. Drones don't do big volumes at this point as they do not have the necessary capacity.

Regarding third party risk. Operations where a "what if" regarding safety of others are not entertained.

The treatment area is inspected thoroughly prior to and rechecked during the application, including the area downwind.

There is not much that cannot be seen approaching the treatment area from up at 300 feet when turning at each end of the field.

This happens at intervals of tens of seconds.

Spent plenty of time holding at 300 ft organising the removal of persons from or near the treatment area. Sometimes, they just turn up for a look and stop several aircraft working.

Regarding insurance, sure drones are insured. How about the pesticide application element? That is a separate element.

Drone tech is clever, very clever. Unconvinced it is suitable for the safe application of pesticides.

However, some parts of the world do not have the same concerns regarding safety and legality.

And, in some parts of the world it is probably somehow cost effective to have ten drones, ten operators and ten support vehicles turn up and work all night to spray a field.

[QUOTE=Ixixly;

Hells beiis, where do we start.
The handling and application of a pesticide is controlled by its label. This is a legal document so the applicator is required by law to obey the label. The label will state if the pesticide can be aerially applied and to which crop and to which target pest.

It will state how much of the pesticide active ingredient must be applied per hectare. It is illegal to apply a lower rate. A lower rate won't necessarily give total control of the target pest and pesticide resistance can develop in the target population. The label can state the droplet size to be used.

The window of optimal conditions for application can be quite small. The spray droplet has to survive the journey from the aircraft to the crop canopy. A combination of temperature and humidity may mean the droplet completely evaporates before it hits the target. So if there is 500 hectares to spray before it gets too hot at 10am you better go with the airtractor option.

The application company and the pilot have to be licensed by state authorities to handle and apply pesticides. Spray liability insurance is a requirement. Off target damage can be expensive.

The ag aircraft is set up to lay down a spray swath of known dimensions. It is set up to minimise aerodynamic entrapment. Spray droplets ending up in the tip vortex can look impressive but it means fine droplets can move off target. The down wash coming off the wing is highly effective at driving the spray cloud into the crop.

The ag pilot arriving over a treatment area is carrying out an extensive due diligence. Haven't seen a map, digital or otherwise that I would trust. Life is full of surprises and low level you don't want them. While you are working a field anything can and does pop up. Sometimes you just have to pull off and go a mile away and fly some orbits until the conflict moves away.

So a drone operator sitting on the tailgate of his ute a mile or so away is going to have trouble controlling his work environment.