High tech drone trial in Australia to help fight against pests

Ninox Robotics is the company behind the 3 week trial with the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone hoping to deliver a powerful tool to help agricultures billion dollar invasive pest problems. The state of the art UAV has the ability to fly at night enabling the thermal camera to be at it most effective since most of the pest activity menacing rural farms is more prevalent at night.

Marcus Ehrlich, MD of Ninox Robotics, said this morning at a press event,  “Australian landholders and managers have been struggling against the problem of invasive pest species for decades, including feral dogs, pigs, deer and rabbits. The issue has caused cumulatively billions of dollars in damages and lost revenue, as well as significant destruction to the country’s unique biodiversity.”

The trial will be done across farms and national parks in QLD and NSW to test the effectiveness of the normal visual spectrum (RGB) and far infrared (thermal) sight to spot invasive pests and domestic animals in a variety of terrain types both at night and in the daytime. The information will be streamed in real-time to ground control stations as well as passive screens viewed by landholders enabling the viewers to determine the location, number and type of targeted pests with existing control techniques.

http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/business-technology/68717-videos-new-anti-pest-agricultural-drone-in-high-tech-aussie-trial