Drones: New Technological Intervention for Smart Agriculture

Abstract

Smart agriculture brings a drastic improvement in the agriculture industry. It providesthe direction in which the steps should be taken for the effective and guaranteed foodsecurity over the changing climate. The main aim of smart agriculture is to increase theproductivity of the crop. Smart agriculture uses real-time information from sensors andlatest technology like remote sensing for better crop productivity. In recent years thereare lots of technological developments in the field of agriculture. New technologies allowthe operator to deal with the major problems such as parasites and sudden climatechanges that can cause the degradation of the quality of crop or cultivated products. Forbetter agricultural productivity and food management, an agriculture monitoring systemis needed. With the help of drones and satellite imagery data, it becomes possible tomonitor the agriculture system at a large scale. Satellite data are being used with broaderperspective like classification of the vegetated & non-vegetated area and for estimatingthe yield of large area. On the other hand data collected through captured images fromdrones are being utilized on comparatively small scale and precise tasks like diseaseidentification, yield estimation of smaller area etc. Drone systems with low power arealso used reliably for UREA spraying wherein involvement of the sensors enables areliable safe operation with good satisfaction of customer. This paper reviews the workdone by researchers towards meeting goals of smart agriculture through use of drones. Italso provides major issues and challenges faced by the researchers while utilizing dronesfor accomplishing smart agriculture.