Drone Ag is the developer of Skippy, a mobile app that delivers highly accurate agricultural data on smartphones. Using inexpensive commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) DJI drones, his Skippy could be a game-changer for farmers, researchers and commercial producers of produce. Skippy Scout offers crop view, reports and more. automatically.
Skippy automates flight, flying a COTS drone to a selected point in a field and transmitting high-resolution leaf-level imagery, requiring no piloting skills. “Skippy then analyzes the captured images and sends a field report showing the percentage of healthy crops, unhealthy crops, weeds and insect damage,” he says Drone Ag. “The whole process takes minutes, not hours.”
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Drone Ag wins UK grant to develop Skippy Scout: automated crop survey with COTS drones
DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby
Drone AG announced the launch of a new two-year project funded by innovate uk The grant was £610,000 and was conditional on raising at least the same amount from private investors. Innovate UK program manager Bruce Collie said: “We are pleased that our grant has worked well enough to de-risk Drone Ag’s ambitious technology plans and to encourage further private investment.”
The funding will enable the development of new automated drone-based systems for Drone Ag. The system is designed for the testing and validation of new agricultural products and will be applied to both research and commercial testing methodologies. The investment was led by a consortium of partners including Business Innovation Center (BIC), Innovation Supernetwork (Newcastle Angel Hub), Northinvest, Fund Ha North and UKBAA.
Jordan Dargue, Head of Access to Finance, Innovation SuperNetwork, said: “The technology Drone Ag is developing is groundbreaking and this funding will help them reach their goal of automating plot analysis faster and more efficiently.
“Most monitoring is still visual, manual, and in-person, so there is a desperate need for innovation in clinical trial programs,” said Ruth Mann, head of integrated crop technology at Agryi.
Backed by industry leaders such as Agrii, Eurofins Agroscience Services and UPL, Drone Ag aims to offer fully automated drone flights from on-site base stations. AI-powered analytics and integration will enable companies to monitor, assess, and investigate clinical trials faster and more accurately.
“UPL is thrilled to see DroneAg’s solutions being applied to R&D trials,” said Graham Poulton, Global Head of UPL’s Agriculture Digital Innovation Team. “We see many benefits to our own operations, including the health of our staff, and we are very supportive. We expect others to benefit from our support of this, and this is in line with his OpenAg mission at UPL.”
“Crop research and development is a critical component in advancing agriculture towards infinite sustainability,” added Drone Ag founder Jack Langham. “We are very pleased to have the backing of Innovate UKs and support from Agrii, UPL and Eurofins to help develop the Skippy Scout platform that will revolutionize crop testing monitoring and analysis.”
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Ian attended Dominican University in California and graduated with a BA in English in 2019. With her lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and keen interest in technology, she now contributes to her DroneLife as a staff writer.
Miriam McNabb, editor-in-chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of professional drone services marketplace JobForDrones, is a keen observer of the emerging drone industry and drone regulatory environment. Miriam is an international speaker and industry recognized figure, with over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and he has over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, email Miriam.
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