Volatus Aerospace’s Matthew Johnson, vice president of education and digital ag, created the course to be interactive, engaging, and forward-thinking, with a multi-year option. “I wanted to create a fresh programme that was interesting and got students involved in some really great components of what we’re doing in the drone sector utilising high-end equipment, multispectral sensors, and some nifty data processing tools and engaging them and all of that,” Johnson says.
The goal behind the science experiential aerial research (SEAR) programme is to involve high school students in data gathering activities utilising drones, followed by data processing and analysis using machine learning.
The Mantioba government funded the STEM-focused programme to concentrate on Dutch elm disease, but students can also construct a crop disease project.
“The crop disease initiative essentially uses multispectral sensors to collect crop health information, collecting near infrared and red edge light spectrum data. “We next educate the pupils about photosynthesis and how different wavelengths of light are absorbed or reflected by plants, such as chlorophyll in plant leaves,” he explains.
“Then when we get out to the site, they perform soil sample, they do leaf and other testing utilising soil moisture probes and stuff like that, where they basically do some agronomic work, they learn about different things. In addition to learning how to operate the drone and collecting aerial data for the following year of the programme.”
Any high school can participate in the programme. (More on this below the player).
Looking ahead, Johnson is not just pleased about the initiative; he also sees additional practical uses for drone use in the field. With the technology’s lowering prices and ease of use, he expects precise photography and crop scouting to become commonplace on most farms. Drone spraying, on the other hand, is unlikely to be a viable short-term solution for most broadacre applications.
UAV remote sensing delivers exceptional spectral, geographical, and temporal resolution, as well as an innovative tool for plant disease identification.
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