Benefits of using agriculture drone
Reduce costs on human labour, plane, helicopter or tractor equipment
Increase application efficiency with the 100L liquid tank that is 50 times faster than the traditional tools
Get insightful data on flight pattern and track harvest changes High performance application even after rain in wet soil
Lower the impact on the environment – the agriculture drone is powered 100% by electricity, can save up to 90% water and 35% pesticide
Increase yield – small droplet diameter make the chemical more well-distribute and improve the effect
AGRICULTURE DRONE IS 40X FASTER THAN MANUAL SPRAYING With AIRBOARD AGRO
we are introducing the next generation of precision agriculture. Built for pesticide and liquid fertilizer application with a capacity of up to 100 litres it is 40 times faster than manual application at 6 hectares an hour, has no soil compression and using smart GPS routing provides optimised precision and worker safety.
DRONE IS 1/2 THE COST OF A HELICOPTER SERVICE AIRBOARD AGRO
is up to 5 times more precise than a helicopter and cut the operational expenditure by 80% compared to a helicopter. Designed for organic ingredients and chemical liquid substances – fungicides for fungi which are commonly practiced in grapevines to prevent powdery mildew, insecticides for insects, herbicides for plants, rodenticides for rodents (rats and mice), bactericides for bacteria, fungicides for fungi (commonly applied on vines), larvicides for larvae.
DESIGNED FOR MULTI-CROP USE
We offer customisable spray nozzles for pesticide and fertiliser overlay for vineyards, palms, cranberries, sugarcane, kiwifruit, avocado, rice, corn, agave and other produce. In cereal crops and wheat ear drizzle fungicides, where there is often only a tiny weather window, a finer air incorporation scatters directly down is efficient in achieving weeds and stem bases. Additionally, tilt dusting with finer air integration particles is efficient for fungicide and desiccant plant canopies and is also efficient for spray coverage on all sides of soil clods and ridges. An expanded range flat fan nozzle includes finer drops which in the autumn and early spring helps wet larger objectives and is also an outstanding general purpose nozzle where drift is not an issue.
EASE OF USE
The agriculture drone comes with a factory installed software for automatic flight planning practicing GPS routing (geofencing employing a satellite map or an RTK). This also gives the farmer data on travel history and operating speed, battery life, route course and more to better measure yield results and track performance. The operation is fully autonomous and supports multiple radar sensors and cameras for obstacle avoidance and maintaining a constant height above the crops. The frame is designed of aircraft grade 6061 aluminium alloy and carbon fiber composite
structures to support a rigid and qualitative structure even for the most extreme flight conditions. The frame is also foldable and fits inside a pickup truck or a minibus for portable transportation.
INDUSTRIAL BATTERY
One of the most important parts of any electric vehicle is it's power unit. With AIRBOARD AGRO we have taken this task design to the next level. The machine comes with a 180Ah industrial Lithium battery pack that is divided into two separate swappable modules for easy installation and transportation. The module has two main positive and negative connectors for redundancy. It has Integrated battery management system (BMS) with low voltage protection and integrated protection circuit module (PCM) with PreCharge. Deep discharge under 2.8V / cell. Power-on protection.
SAFETY AND RELIABILITY
The aircraft is designed with aerospace level safety standards, highest quality components and redundancy systems in place to support a safe user operation. The agriculture drone is able to fly even if one electrical motor, controller or battery has stopped working. The flight controller is equipped with 2 GPS units for redundancy and breakthrough precision and can be customised for dual transmitter system. The controller has a dual power management unit (PMU) and dual power line.
ORGANIC GROWING WITH AGRICULTURE DRONE
Biological growers apply environmentally friendly programs to prevent diseases, like powdery mildew for grape agriculturists which is the largest problem with wine grapes. For instance, orange peel tea can be used as an alternative to fungicide use. Since biological methods are less resistant to rain they require often proceeding (15-25 instances per year compared to 8-12 per year using chemical substitutes). This, in turn, leads to inflated costs by 200%, therefore, most bio-growers do not use helicopters for spraying but apply it manually themselves which leads to increased price of the end product. Given the reduction of agriculture drone spraying cost, we provide a lower market entry barrier for organic agriculturists. In fact, around half of our partners are organic growers. However, most agriculturists worldwide (and other farming industries) still service chemical substances and governments have put in place regulations to trim this amount. California: According to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation
acreage treated with fungicides during 2016 upturned by 32% [compared to 2015]. European Union: There are currently regulatory frameworks in place to actively reduce the amount of chemical substances and promote biological approach. According to the
European Parliament directive 2009/128/EC
sustainable biological, physical and other non-chemical methods must be preferred to chemical substances if they provide satisfactory pest control.
AGRICULTURE DRONE VS TRACTOR OR CATERPILLAR
Generally aerial treatment is more time efficient and provides lower fuel charge per acre than a tractor, due to upsurge coverage pace, however, multiple reasons make ground tractors or caterpillar a preferred mode. First, let's see why conventional airborne methods are and are not used:
Advantages of aerial treatment:
• Airborne operation is often the fastest means of getting the necessary protection products to the affected crop.
• Leave no tracks in valuable produce and are the only option during wet spells (for example for growing corn – which is planted in wet soil)
• More environmentally friendly as it lessens soil erosion by as much as 90% by assisting no-till or minimum till operations preserve the integrity of the soil.
Disadvantages of aerial methods:
• Low flexibility on flight schedule for large farms
• Distance from airports and expensive pilot licenses can step-up expenditure in multiple regions
• Low precision process – (1) resulting in lower yield due to drift and (2) regulatory limitations to treatment with airplanes due to environmental and public health hazards like drift; most notably, in the EU.
Summary of agriculture drones vs manual workforce or machinery:
• Given maximised precision and flexibility for unmanned aerial vehicle procedures, agriculture drones offer a better value proposition than conventional treatment management even in fields where aeriform services are not commonly utilised to date.
• Even more so, airborne activity is most efficient in fields that are often surrounded by obstacles such as trees, telephone lines, farm buildings, mountainous, steep fields, fruitage that are grown in swamps (e.g., cranberries), fruit trees and palms.
• Adopting crop analysis tools from airborne imagery allows to further scale down the substance dosing, increases harvest and results in a higher output per acre and lower financial investment.
• Compared to manual treatment: up to 40 times faster than hand labour, dramatically reducing the cost of operations.
WHY AIRBOARD AGRO
• Expand your business with larger acre range
• Customisable capacity, nozzles and pressure for different crops
• Save costs on labour and transportation rate compared to multiple smaller UAVs
• Free employee agriculture drone training and after-sales support
• Experienced industrial technical partner with 10 years of UAV manufacturing expertise • Environmentally friendly - powered 100% by electricity
Disclosure of flight range: at its maximum velocity (7 m/s) DJI MG1-P is able to cover up to 10 acres / h. Adopting the same synthetic concentration at 7 m/s AIRBOARD AGRO is able to cover up to 100 acres / h, however, at this acceleration this would be a coverage of 0.05 gallons / acre while aeriform techniques on grapes require 16 gallons / acre of fungicide. In addition, to escalate the quality of the coverage and better target the plant our partners operate based on the specific crop or diseases targeted – sometimes at 1 m/s agility to achieve the desired outcome and whilst decreasing the navigation speed this dramatically increases the applied precision and yield.
START YOUR OWN AGRICULTURE DRONE SPRAYING BUSINESS
Many of our strategic partners are service providers to farms – companies that operate helicopters, UAVs or tractors to provide a pest or fertiliser operational work to nearby farms or the whole country. To illustrate the benefits of such a duty we've provided below and informative material on opportunity in Germany for pest spread business.
Vineyard owners in Moselle region, Germany spend 25,000 EUR / 10 ha annually for pest treatment with helicopters. Grapevines in Germany are grouped in sections of 20-30 vineyards in a town that each have a select vine grower who is responsible for the service operations for the vineyard section – his and neighbouring properties – this is done to (1) discount the tariff (so that a helicopter applies multiple gardens at the same time close by each other instead of kilometers apart) and (2) increase efficiency. This operator is responsible for scheduling the helicopter flights that are outsourced – to
slim the figure of owning an inventory and flight license – which depending on the season is 8-15 times a year May trough September. For organic growers it can be up to 25 intervals a year. The coordinator is also responsible for providing the fungicide substance according with the concentrations set forth by Germany government. Multi-year contracts are set in place. Germany in particular has 253,483 acres of vineyards across 13 wine regions from which about 30% are benefited by helicopters.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
AirBoard is a Latvian industrial agriculture drone manufacturer with offices in Europe and San Francisco. Backed by two leading Silicon Valley based startup accelerators - Alchemist Accelerator – ranked as #1 enterprise accelerator in the world by Forbes and Boost VC – run by fourth generation venture capitalist Adam Draper. Among our mentors is billionaire investor Tim Draper who was an early investor in companies such as Skype, Tesla, SpaceX and Hotmail. AirBoadounder Elviss Straupenieks was named by the Nordic Business Report in 2018 as one of the 25 and Under in Northern Europe. The engineering team consists of world-class engineers with 50 years of combined experience in robotics and electro-mobility that have worked on projects from heavy lift agriculture drone aeronautical systems to the fastest electric racing car in the world.
COMPLIANCE WITH AGRICULTURE DRONE REGULATIONS
It is the buyer's responsibility to make sure that the agriculture drone use is compliant with laws and regulations of the country or state for the agriculture drone or other UAV operations. Usually this may require (1) a drone or other type pilot's license for the pilot, (2) a certification for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) under the local civil aviation agency or other responsible government structure and (3) pesticide application license. In addition we advise to get an insurance package for the aircraft and any 3rd party property in the case of accident – in many countries this may be required by law to operate the aircraft. Please consult your local government official responsible for agriculture drone operations about the necessary documentation and licensing.
In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a draft advisory circular regarding UAV type certification. In the draft Advisory Circulars (AC) the requirements and difficulty to obtain a Type Certificate (TC) are tied to the kinetic energy of the agriculture drone and the operational risk profile. The heavier and faster the drone, the more stringent requirements for failure probability and design assurance. At a maximum takeoff-weight (MTOW) of 180 kg (100 kg cargo payload + 80 kg drone), low speed and rural operations is at the lower difficulty end of the difficulty scale, able to avail American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards for airworthiness requirements, and having the least stringent design assurance and failure probability requirements (per the draft AC, likely 10e-5 and level D HW/SW design assurance).