DIY Series: Drone for Agribusiness High-Resolution Remote Sensing

The DIY Approach

Leading organizations in the agriculture industry are increasingly developing their digital capabilities in-house. With existing IT and innovation teams, they aim to minimize technology costs through a DIY approach. These organizations excel in creating custom mobile apps, BI solutions, AI, and Remote Sensing and GIS Systems.?

Being the developer, integrator, and operator of these technologies at scale, we at SeeTree have encountered numerous hurdles, experiencing hidden yet impactful obstacles. Simple engineering blueprints can become quite complex when implemented on a large scale while trying to keep costs down.

Choosing the Right Drone

So, you've decided to purchase and operate your own fleet. What are the key factors in choosing the right drone?

Simple:

1. Cost of the equipment and maintenance
2. Hourly throughput?
3. Ease of use

It's more complex than it seems.

How do crashes impact your calculations?

What about data processing?

How do your farms' geo-locations affect operations?

How often and how quickly do you need to perform analyses?

Is there value in an analysis that covers all your farms?

The decision-making process to choose the right path is complicated yet doable.?

Here is a nice exercise

Let’s assume:

Let’s compare 3 drones with the following basic specs:

Now, let’s repeat that exercise by changing the total size from 20,000 Ha to 2,000 Ha, with only 100 blocks instead of 1,000:

Drone A, which was excellent in the first case, became an expensive overkill in the second. While it may improve over time, no executive wants to wait that long.

Tailor your Solution to the Need

Agribusiness executives aiming for an efficient in-house solution need to understand the various cost elements and how to tailor the solution to their specific needs. Although this can be complex, experienced surveyors like SeeTree can help develop an efficient strategy that supports the primary analysis objectives.?