This use case shows the developments of the COMP4DRONES project in the field of agriculture.
Agriculture is the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock as well as the preparation and marketing of the resulting products. From the perspective of environmental and climate protection novel resource-saving agricultural technologies are necessary.
The concept of precision farming is based on the observation, measurement and response to variability between and within the field in cultivated plants. Through the precise determination of the condition of all plants and the soil, water or nutrient deficiency but also diseases and vermin infestation can be recognized. This enables a timely and targeted treatment of the plants and the soil. Moreover, advanced and more intelligent models can help both in water efficiency use and in reducing the cost and impact on the environment of herbicides or pesticides.
In this Use Case two demonstrators will be implemented, which are located in very different areas of agriculture and address these special boundary conditions.
The first demonstrator operates in the area of wide crop production and deals with the technology requirements for plant monitoring, with a focus on health and growth management, whereby a rover is also used in addition to the drone. Using an autonomous rover, unlike larger and heavier tractors, will reduce the impact on the ground. Drone-rover coordination will allow local on-spot intervention, limiting also the costs of the intervention, which will be additionally precisely sized, and then less impacting on the environment.
The second demonstrator illuminates, the specific technological needs of viticulture in a remote area with poor infrastructure, where the drone serves as a gateway for images and land-bound sensor data.
The use of drones, rovers and land-bound sensors is always associated with the exchange of data via communication or data link. For this reason, special attention is paid to secure communication. In addition, both demonstrators of this Use Case show the architectures for drone systems-of-systems composition to enable self-adaptability.
