Professor Jeff Walker: “Farmers don’t have all the ex- pertise to hand to implement state of the art technology. It’s upon us, researches and engineers, to provide them with the tools they need.”
into the soil will be greater. We will see 10 to 15 centimetres into the soil.”
P-band far less affected The Monash University team has a P-band system at the moment, situated on a tower. Prof Walker: “It is very big and clunky. And it is nowhere near flying on a drone. We are doing some side by side studies with L-band and P-band. These tests are for a range of moisture conditions, vegetations and crop types. We find that, when you get to really wet, dense, lush crops, you still can get satu- ration of your signal with L-band. The P-band is far less affected by that vegetation. But we are a way off using P-band on a drone yet.” The L-band microwave system that the team is building, is close to 25kg. Prof Walker explains that L-band is also a protected spec- trum, which means there should be minimal artificial signals measured. P-band is not protected. To get a clear picture there is more work to be done to get it operational. Radar is less suitable for soil moisture mapping, he says. “The sig- nal is more difficult to interpret and the resolution and temporal repeat from satellites does not meet the needs of precision agri- culture. There may be a future for it, but at the moment it is not suitable yet.”
Increased yield Walker thinks that there is a worldwide need for more production on the same land, with the same amount of water. “It is probably a combination of things. We need to use the water more efficient but we also need a more efficient variety of crops. At the moment we surely do irrigation not very well. At best farmers may have one
or two moisture sensors in their field. Most people probably don’t even have that. Soil moisture is highly variable at small scale, so there is a lot of room for making improvements very easily.” Prof Walker expects the yield to increase in one of two ways. “With the first option you deliver just the right amount of water at the right time so that optimum yield is achieved with minimum water wastage, possibly meaning you have enough water to get right through the season. With the second option you water slightly be- low optimal. You still get a good yield per hectare, but an overall increased yield because the saved water allows you to irrigate more land.”
Simple and turnkey product Although the Monash University team has no plans to develop their technology into a commercial product, they are certainly willing to talk to anyone who wants to take the drone technology forward. “A practical way for farmers is to have something that is simple and turnkey, so that farmers can operate it themselves. All the way through from the flight planning to the production of a map.” Prof Walker realises that farmers are busy people. “They don’t have all the expertise to hand to implement state of the art technology. It’s upon us, researches and engineers, to provide them with the tools they need. So they can be able to be as efficient as they can without too much of an additional workload or demands. That’s why a seamless autonomous process is the way of the future. Farmers do not have the time to stand around and fly drones all day. And they don’t have the resources to have other people do that for them.”
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