Farm Hawk UAV System concept discussion

I was reading this article and I came to a conclusion. If someone built a drone that looked like a hawk that was designed to resemble a species indigenous to the area of a farm and be solar powered and would loiter over the farm in a random but inclusive pattern restricted to the airspace above the farm at an altitude below any airspace restrictions a farm owner could keep pest birds and rodents away from the farm without any direct control of the device. It should increase crop yields by reducing pests and by providing real-time crop data to a central system. This would provide a lot of value for the money for such a drone system.

www.inceptivemind.com...

Once you read the linked article I would like to know what ATS members think of my evolution on this concept. Any opinions of course I would welcome but the image in my mind is so strong that this is not just possible but likely viable as a product that can add value to existing systems with little market resistance. I think that only the actual hawks and other birds of prey might put a wrinkle in this idea.

Three problems I see.

Crows.

Jays.

Grackles.

All will mob hawks for practically no reason.

a reply to: AstroDog I think you’re right about crows they are so smart they would probably immediately attack the thing wouldn’t they?

a reply to: machineintelligence

What about those bird of prey kite like things?

You see them on top of buildings in my area. They are designed to be a predator of the pigeons so they don’t nest and crap all over the overhangs of buildings here.

For a solar powered drone to be truly solar powered it would have to be a fixed wing type of craft. But fixed wing are susceptible to wind conditions.
My event 38 has a 90k range on it but can’t handle wind worth a crap.

Perhaps a tethered quad type.
Slap on a multi spec camera and you could conduct crop health checks, but would need to be able to download the data or have a robust system in place to auto process at set intervals.

Most drones use photogrammetry as the means to determine crop health via reflectance mapping.

My Matrice 300 has around 45 min of flight time. With the multi spec camera, roughly 300 images contains around 12 gb of data.
To process that data in drone deploy, it takes about 4 hours on the cloud.

To process that in Pix4d locally, I can do it in about the same amount of time, but it renders my computer damn well useless while it processes.

ETA: I love seeing more and more autonomous work tasks being conducted by drones.
There’s literally limitless potential with drones these days and it’s just exponentially increasing every couple of months.

You might find this of interest
MicaSens e

a reply to: Macenroe82
Thanks for your input. It is interactions like this that keep me coming back to ATS. People like you make this an awesome resource for me. That is one nice bird you got there with that Matrice 300. It cost about as much as a cheap car but I am betting it is a net money maker for you and not just a plaything.

a reply to: AstroDog

Yeah. But hawks don't have 4 rotors spinning with hellish RPMs.

a reply to: machineintelligence

Thank you for the compliment,

Oh heck yes!
that thing paid for itself after 2 flights.
I sort of went all out with it and got 6 batteries- they are $1000 each!
And the H20T Thermal camera,
The P1 - Zenmuse Camera.
And the L1 LiDAR sensor

I’ll let you Google the prices of those sensors lol.
No longer a cheap car, but a luxury edition, full sized truck haha.

Well, not to mention the photogrammetry software licenses, just to process the data.

It’s expensive, but like I said, it pays for itself almost immediately.

a reply to: Macenroe82 As far as the photogrammetry software, which one is the best value in your opinion?

a reply to: Macenroe82

In what way do you utilize these sensors and cameras, I ask because I've been thinking about getting my FAA drone license. Where I live we have a lot of agriculture and industrial businesses that I feel could benefit from such technology. I'm just curious as to what you do with yours. Thanks!

a reply to: machineintelligence

I started with Pix4d.
They are a Swiss company the revolutionized the photogrammetry software space.
They had the all in one, user friendly - yet fairly advanced options, software.
They lead this space for about 5 years starting in 2011.

But as with anything, as the space started to boom, Pix4d saw a way to capitalize and became greedy.
Like I said, they had an all in one software. Everything could be done with their program.
Rather than keep their credibility as being number 1, they let greed take over and their all in one started becoming broken out into modules. Like how Autodesk does now.

In the matter of a year in 2015, You could get 70% of the work flow done with their base software, but then you would hit a road block and need to purchase a separate module for another $5-8k to finish what you needed to do.
Okay I figured one more module isnt that bad.
Then the next year they broke their software into 4 different modules.

At around that time, I got approached by Drone Deploy to try their new and improved photogrammetry software. I had very low hopes for it, because I was originally a beta tester for them years before.
And their software was AWFUL.
There were stories from people online of flyaway's - where your drone would just take off after you upload the mission to it, and it would just go in one direction and continue until it ran out of battery with no way to take over.
The app itself would also crash mid flight and leaving you unable to return to home.
It was the worst years before, so I had very low expectations.
But I agreed to try it again as long as they replaced my drone if it crashed.

They gave me a "Test Flight" link to download their app.
And I havent looked back.

I dropped Pix4d. Told my customer rep that I stuck with them, but their greed is killing their company.

Drone Deploy in my opinion is the absolute best photogrammetry software there is.
I have a great relationship with them.
My client rep calls me every 3 months to make sure were meeting our goals with the software.
They have me do presentations for them.
They call me up asking what I want or what I need to make my job easier on their part.
Any customized tools that I need, they implement.
What can they implement so other companies in this industry can turn to them and have absolutely everything and anything that they would need, plus any extra tools at their disposal.

Ive spoken at their conferences 3 years in a row now.
Plus have done a handful of use case presentations for them now.

Hands down, Drone Deploy is the leader in the photogrammetry industry for my needs. Its the customer/client relationship that your really paying for. I can call my client rep any day of the week at almost anytime if I have an issue. You dont get that with any other company.
Heck DJIs software - DJI Terra, doesnt even have instructions on how to use it hahaha.
Its a figure it out and read the forums type of software.
D.D is the best for me, because I have such a wide spectrum of drone use.
Another person might find something cheap and easy like Agisoft will meet all their needs because they are limited to one or two very specific tasks.

No joke, I get contacted over LinkedIn fairly often from companies asking me to test their software, and so far nothing comes close to what D.D offers and their willingness to be the best my doing everything their clients need.

This is my most recent presentation for them on Leveraging Drone Data for Mining.
You can stream it right from google drive.
Drone Data in Mining

a reply to: Oppositeoftruth

I touch on a few of the use cases in this presentation:
Presentation

But honestly its limitless.
I use the thermal camera when I do dam inspections.
Any leaks into the environment will be easily spotted by the thermal cam.
Where as having a person walk the 15 km of dam we have exposed to the environment, would take a long time, plus could be missed due to human error.

From stock pile surveys, volumetrics, energy audits, 3d modelling, even just basic measurements if need be.
Here is a 3d model made from photogrammetry.
Fully Georeferenced and to scale.
3d model video

With the way the industry is headed, absolutely, get your license. It will pay for itself with your first drone mission!

a reply to: machineintelligence

But saying that,
You can also look into Cloud Compare.
Its a free open source photogrammetry platform.
Not exactly user friendly by any means. But once you read the boards and check some videos out on Youtube, you will start to get the hang of it.

Cloud Compare

a reply to: Macenroe82
Thanks for the input. This thread has been very instructive to me and I hope others found it useful as well. Now I am off to Cloud Compare.

a reply to: machineintelligence

You have any other in depth questions, just DM me and ill give you my email address.

a reply to: machineintelligence

I wanted to show you this.

We talked about drones in the air, but I wanted to show you another drone that I helped design and develop.
This drone is designed to fly underground and other hazardous environments that you would never send a human into.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Very cool. I had not thought about flying underground, but it works in a buckyballs kind of roll cage.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Wow man, I really appreciate all this information. I know a couple of farmers who had in the past expressed interest in using drones for when like a jersey gets loose, how it'd be so much quicker and economical than riding around in a gator aimlessly for hours. I also live within walking distance from the new river and the dam, at least two times during summer, someone goes missing or is dumped by their kayak and ends up on a sand barge or something like that, I know the volunteer fire fighters have uses them before in such scenarios. We has a boiler blow up at work about 2 years ago, and they paid someone really well to fly up to the silos and check out the condition and check for hot spots, that's what put the idea in my head.

Anyway Thanks man it's much appreciated! Good luck with your endeavors as well!

a reply to: Oppositeoftruth

Ya, the H20T Camera for the Matrice, is used by search and rescue teams all over the world.
As well as security teams because the zoom level on the camera is phenomenal and you can tell the drone to follow any object.
For the cow, you might even see a thermal trail if you get the bird in the air quick enough.