Aerial robotics sampling for agricultural scouting

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Since 2004, food prices have been rising due to depleted food stocks resulting not only from increased demand, but also increased fertilizer/pesticide costs, oil prices, labor shortages and extreme weather. To optimize the production and health of these crops, current techniques involve regular "scouting" to visually inspect the crops for growth stage, nutrient deficiencies, injuries, disease, and fungus, but more importantly, to allow for the sampling of tissue, soil and insects. This allows the early detection of nutrient deficiency, of fungus infection or of insect infestations. Scouting leads to better productivity, reduces operating costs, and reduces the environmental impacts of fertilizers and pesticides. Unfortunately, these techniques require the seasonal help of a large number of skilled workers. As a result, these jobs are ranked in the top 2 in-demand positions and hardest. Accordingly, it is claimed that the main obstacle to farming is the large area of farmed land and low efficiency in crop monitoring. Currently, human scouts have to walk large areas. It is estimated that "traditional" scouting requires up to 5h per 100 acres for only a few data points, with critical repeatability issues. With the right technological developments, robotics could speed up operations, help fill the shortage of skilled workers, and increase sampling resolution and repeatability. Fast flying drones are already being used to monitor plant stress through multispectral imagery. However, the consensus is that on-the-ground scouting is required as plant stress than can be detected by imagery will have already decreased production below desirable economic levels. Furthermore, imagery does not clearly differentiate between the different plant stressors. Only preventive large-scale scouting, together with spatial and temporal analysis, can provide the data needed to reap the full benefits promised by precision agriculture. It is predicted that robotics scouting will drive the next agriculture revolution. This proposal thus aims at creating aerial sampling solutions that will enable fast scouting of large fields. However, due to the risks and difficulties involved with hardware development, particularly of in-contact aerial robotics, few efforts are currently devoted to the technologies required for aerial agricultural scouting. As such, the short-term objectives of this program focus on demonstrating the potential of novel hardware technologies, which include, full top-to-bottom plant imagery, plant tissues samplers, soil samplers and insect/fungus samplers. This research program will contribute to training 2 PhD, 2 MScA and 5 coop trainees in the field of aerial/agricultural robotics. They will publish in top ranked conferences and scientific journals while developing skills in high demand by the industry. Beside improving the worldwide food production, it is estimated that the total addressable market of drone powered solutions in agriculture is $32B.