Taking precision agriculture to new heights using solar-powered drones and hyperspectral imaging
Drones are revolutionizing precision agriculture approaches, but there are currently limits to the amount of land area these high-flying machines can cover. Gamaya, a Swiss AgTech company, is playing an important role in making long-flight agricultural drones a reality through our work with Solar3 — a solar-powered unmanned aircraft that can fly longer and scan a greater amount of agricultural areas using powerful hyperspectral imaging technology.
Solar3 is a collaborative international project involving Swiss and Ukrainian companies, with funding from the European Space Agency. It provides large-scale growers with actionable intelligence that can ensure crops grow healthy without wasting chemicals, nutrients, and water.
The unique solar-powered drone, manufactured by the Autonomous Systems Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, is able to perform completely autonomous flights lasting 6–8 hours — more than double the amount of time other drones are able to fly. And in the future, it is expected that Solar 3 will be able to fly for much longer. There are already examples of solar-powered aircraft staying in the air for 60–80 hours, and this could increase indefinitely as high-performance solar cells generate energy for the flights right in the air.
Gamaya’s hyperspectral camera and data processing products are used as the platform sensor and analytics system. Our proprietary lightweight hyperspectral sensors do not weigh the drone down and are capable of detecting the activity of electromagnetic reflection in 40 channels in the wavelength range of 400–1000 nanometers — instead of the classic 4–7 channels of multispectral cameras. This allows a more accurate remote determination of the biophysical and physio-chemical properties of plants and soil across vast areas of land. In one working day, our platform is able to scan up to 20 thousand hectares, depending on the selected flight characteristics.
The Ukrainian operator company Drone UA is the third partner in the Solar 3 collaboration, providing operations and business support for the current pilot project in Ukraine. Expansion to other countries in Eastern Europe is expected to follow soon.
The Solar 3 project delivers analytic maps for various crops during their growing cycles, as well as actionable insights that growers can use to better manage and plan their operations. Some of the indicators currently assessed include:
- Determining fertilizer needs
- Recognition and classification of weeds
- Biomass development monitoring and yield forecasting
- Recognition and early detection of pests and diseases
- Determination of soil erosion
Gamaya is thrilled to be a part of this transformative project that is taking precision agriculture to new heights. By combining the capabilities of hyperspectral imaging and analytics with the help of long-term flight technology using solar-powered drones, Solar 3 is providing exciting opportunities to scan huge arrays of fields and delivering greater levels of analysis and value than ever before.
