Evaluating Unmanned Aerial Systems (Drones) for Scouting Field Crops

The FAA recently announced of their approval for the first on-farm evaluations of an unmanned aerial system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, in western NY by Cornell Cooperative Extension. The announcement from the FAA is available here. The announcement from the NUAIR testing site is available here. A short project description is available here on NWNY Dairy, Livestock, and Field Crops Team's website. I hope to begin flying in the coming weeks and to continue our evaluations during the 2015 and 2016 seasons throughout western NY. We are using the Lancaster UAS platform (Figure 1) from Precision Hawk.

Figure 1: UAS Platform Evaluating Field Crops

Source:  Precision Hawk.

This project has received a lot of media attention given that it was the first approved UAS operation for the the New York-Massachusetts testing site. Some of the recent articles are listed below with links if you would like more information on this project. I am still in the early stages of this project and will update this blog post and www.nwnyteam.org as appropriate.

Washington Post, authored by the Associated Press, 8-8-14

Farm Progress 8-13-14

Democrat & Chronicle  Rochester, NY, 8-12-14

The Daily News Batavia, NY, 8-12-14

Observer-Dispatch Utica, NY, 8-7-14 

WKTV Rome, NY, 8-7-14

Genesee Sun Livingston & Monroe Counties, 8-7-14

Precision Hawk, 7-17-14

Syracuse.com Syracuse, NY, 6-13-14

Livingston County News  Livingston County, 8-14-14
Lancaster Farming, Northeastern US, 9-13-14
New Scientist, United Kingdom, 9-17-14
WKBW Channel 7 ABC News Buffalo, 10-1-14