Drone Applications

Welcome to the University of Manitoba Resources for Agricultural Engineering podcast! Your gateway to discovering the latest innovations, research, and practical solutions in agricultural engineering.

In this episode, host and Agricultural Research Extension Engineer, Dr. Uduak Edet, chats with Dr. Dilshan Benaragama, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Manitoba. They discuss how drones are reshaping agriculture through crop monitoring, spraying, and farm management, highlighting key opportunities, challenges, and the future of drones in agriculture.

Transcript

Uduak Edet: 0:13

Hello and welcome to the University of Manitoba Resources for Agricultural Engineering podcast. I am your host, Udwak Edit, an agricultural research extension engineer in the Department of Biosystem Engineering. This podcast is your gateway to discovering the latest innovations, research, and practical solutions in agricultural engineering. Our mission is to forge meaningful connections with the agricultural community and help farmers address their engineering needs and aspirations. Today I am joined by Dr. Deshan Benaragama, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba. Before we talk about drones, please tell us about yourself and what inspired you to work with drones.

Dilshan Benaragama: 0:58

Hi everyone, thanks for having me today for this conversation. And yeah, I'm excited to talk about uh this topic today. And thank you very much for picking up the topic. So, yeah, my name is Delshan Benaragama. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba in the Department of Plant Science. Yeah, my area of research is on agriculture, basically, agronomy, and more focus on weed management. Basically, my background, my master's and PhD is based on uh weed control, weed management, cropping systems. And I have kind of pretty much basic training on agronomy, uh, cropping systems of our Western Canada. But when it comes to drones and digital agriculture, that is where I didn't have a proper kind of background training. As I mentioned, I'm coming from a conventional type of research background. So, what the question uh why I was interested in drones and digital agriculture per se is because I think I have a very kind of optimistic feeling about this technology and comes to solving farmers' problems. I'm pretty much now relying and believing these new technologies can assist them and so find some solutions for weed management, particularly, plus an agronomy side of things as well. Yeah, so that's kind of my basic uh background and why I'm into more digital agriculture drones, is that finding solutions kind of in a different way than what I was used to. Uh, looking into more agronomy, ecological things. I have been done a lot of research on that side of things, but now I want to focus more on a new technology side of things where I can I might be able to bring solutions for farmers.

Uduak Edet: 2:29

Okay, thank you. You talked about drone. What are drone and how do they differ from other remotely controlled aircraft?

Dilshan Benaragama: 2:38

Uh, when you say a drone, a drone, also known as generally as UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle, it is a basically a vehicle that is being driven without a pilot. That's what you call unmanned. So it is controlled by a control system, and there is no person on board compared to a traditional aircraft. So that's the basic definition, and it everything is in this system is programmed. So you can fly it without having somebody as a pilot, but you're controlling it in a with a remote controller, plus pre-plan the whole uh mission so it can fly by itself. Is it has GPS guidance, basically navigation systems and other sensors where it can automatically drive itself? That's basically a UAV.

Uduak Edet: 3:23

So, what are the main components of a drone?

Dilshan Benaragama: 3:26

When it comes to basic drone, there are kind of three to four components, I would say. One is the body, the frame, and the propellers, that is the key part of it. And then you have the GPS and guidance systems and sensors to navigation perspective, that is very important. And then the other big component is the payload. We generally call a payload, means what type of equipment that a drone carries that can do its functionality. If you are looking for serving, then we need to have cameras. If you want to do some agriculture spraying or apply any inputs, then we have pans, spreaders, like things. And finally, there's another component called communication system that is where it needs to communicate with the controller, remote controller. So I would say there's four other four key components on a drone like that.

Uduak Edet: 4:17

You talked about different things you you use a drone for, like you go to the markets, you see different types of drones. What are the different types and how can you differentiate one from the other just by physically looking at them?

Dilshan Benaragama: 4:30

So when you say drones, it's kind of represents a wide range of equipment, different functionality of drone. Uh, if I put it into a different like categories to understand easy, one is uh the big component we have, everybody knows is the recreational or hobby drones, which are very small, lightweight. Uh, they have inbuilt cameras to take photos or videos, mainly used for recreational purposes, for filming, taking for images, like stuff. That's everybody knows that how knows about drones. The other big component when it comes to our discussion that is more relevant is agricultural drones. There can be even different sizes under this category, comes from smaller to medium to large, uh, with different types of propellers as well as payloads. I will again categorize this uh within these agriculture drones. We have actually two types. So one is uh mainly for uh mapping drones, that is for monitoring purpose, a fixed wing or can be multi-rotor. That means fixed wings means you know, you have seen aircraft types, there the wings spans out and they are fixed. And the rotor type is a helicopter type uh rotors are there. Those are the two big things, and these drones are equipped with cameras, sensors for crop scouting, field mapping, and plant health monitoring. I can give you some examples like products, you know, like the DJI is a main brand that we are using in terms of drones. So DJI Mavic series, uh, mini series, small drones, good to do, get the job done. And there are another part called mid-level drones, uh, which is a little bit higher cost, but it gives additional things like you can have additional multi-spectral bands, and then you have can have more crop health monitoring, uh, like things, so medium range. There's an advanced level called enterprise level drones under the survey drones that is once comes with a payload. So we buy a drone separately and we buy the payload separately. The sensors we have to buy separately. This is mainly used for research purposes, surveying stuff, more industrial purposes. People use this kind of drones. In in agriculture, we use this for research. For example, the DJI matrix series, like 300, 400 series. But we have to buy the sensors separately. That's expensive. If you want, I can later give the prices like stuff, the range. For now, there are three levels a very small to medium to large. That is mapping drones. That's the other one is spray drones, that is the latest addition to agricultural drones, that is where we can spray a chemical or apply uh some fertilizer or seeds, like those are called spray drones. So these are under agriculture drones. Then we have other commercial industrial drones, uh, as I mentioned, coming with different types of sensors. That's kind of basic categories.

Uduak Edet: 7:11

Okay, you said something about that you have to buy sensors. Like what type of sensors do you actually buy or integrate into an agricultural drone?

Dilshan Benaragama: 7:20

Now, again, if I repeat clearly myself, uh, what I'm saying is there are types of drones that the sensors or cameras come in build, they're small, like uh very early stage, earliest generation of drones. We don't have to buy anything, comes with the drone, so you just fly it and you get the images. That's how most of farmers can use very simple drones. The ones I'm talking about is the mid-level to high-level drones that is more for research purpose. That's where we have to buy a sensor separately, like a multi-spectral sensor or RGB camera with high resolution. We can buy separately and attach as a separate payload. And here we can apply a thermal camera or thermal sensor that are called LIDAR sensors, that is kind of uh a different type of sensors that gives a different purpose. And finally, there are called hyperspectral sensors. So, how they vary is type of bands, type of information we can gather. So, RGB is very basic, kind of what you have in your phone, mobile phone, gives you a quick image and gives you some information, but it is not giving you a lot of information about crop health, uh, like more crop disease scouting or something like that. You need a different type of sensor. That's where multi-spectral, thermal, LIDAR, all these things add up. So when you go upper levels, you get more information, but sometimes you may or may not need this information depending on your requirement.

Uduak Edet: 8:42

So you talked about using drones for mapping. Can you expand on that with regards to crop monitoring and disease detection?

Dilshan Benaragama: 8:52

Yeah, the simplest way a farmer can use a drone is by a very basic level of drone that is having an in-built camera like RGB or even multi-spectral inbuilt. Like when I'm saying a very common drone is DJI Mavic 3M, that is that is a small drone, around costs around $6,000, $7,000 in the range. So you can get all these, you can monitor the crop, you can get a visual image, as well as you can get additional information like NDVI that people already know, that is X gives you how much greenness in the canopy, so it gives you health. So that kind of index indices can be also obtained from this kind of a entry-level drone, but good enough to do crop monitoring. So if you have a large acre farm, you can get this drone and fly it as you will and map your whole farm, and you can keep on mapping this over the through the season and get this information and monitor where you see the problems in in your farm. So that is kind of very entry-level system and easy to monitor, easy to handle.

Uduak Edet: 9:59

You said something about mapping, spraying. Can you also use drone for irrigation planning and water management? And if so, how can you go about that?

Dilshan Benaragama: 10:11

So, yeah, so typically we used to know when you use drones just to image, right? Take a picture of the whole farm and see where the problems are, either using NDVI, like an index that gives you help or any other indices that can be obtained from a drone. But these days, new sensors are coming along that you can go beyond that and measure the water stress, the heat, the temperature level of the canopy, crop canopy in the soil. So these are different types of sensors, use different types of wavelengths. So typically they operate in the long wave infrared range on a typical camera, RGB or multi-spectral camera has. So if you go that level, then you get additional layer of information saying, Oh, this is a where that water is deficiency is obtained by difference in temperature, and then the temperature can be mapped as you map uh N DVI or as you map a typical crop uh growth. So that is a way we can do using thermal sensors. Plus, even if you have a basic like multi-spectral or typical RGB camera, you can still understand the water deficiency or water deficits in a canopy using the greenness indices. So, how much change in the greenness also can be a reflection of a water deficiency. So that is indirect measurement. But directly, if you want to measure the temperature and moisture, then these uh thermal cameras can become handy. The other thing what we can do with more advanced, if you go further step above, if you use LIDAR like a sensor, we can map the topography of your land. So where are the where are the low-lying areas, where the high-lying areas are. So that way you can have an idea, farmer can have an idea uh where is the water is flowing, where is uh the water is accumulating, like stuff, because you can build a topography map, not a canopy map. So that is can be done using 3D mapping using a LIDAR-like sensor.

Uduak Edet: 12:05

People in crop are actually excited. Oh, drones can actually do this for us. What about um livestock producers? Is there any way drones can actually help them as well?

Dilshan Benaragama: 12:15

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm not an expert in livestock area, but in very basic sense, this definitely basic drone, like with RGB camera, can use to count where the your herd is moving around, where your your livestock, your cattle is around in your farm, and what are they doing, like activity, like basic things, you can do it. You can record it, you can video it. That's very basic level. If you go further, you can do counts. Uh, whether you want to have get a herd count, you can use that image and get a count uh using these tools and track the movement and also locate the missing livestock, just RGB. But if you go first step above, as I mentioned, a thermal sensor is rapidly uh getting uh recognized as a good tool for livestock because thermal sensor gives you uh real indication of where the real livestock is, even in under dark conditions, you can monitor how they move around, what are their behaviors, and if you get a if you uh if you lose your track of your herd, these thermal cameras can be really beneficial. And I have seen a lot of farmers in some areas using this already, so that's kind of uh a use of drones for livestock perspective.

Uduak Edet: 13:25

Earlier on, you differentiated they say there's mapping drone, there's spring drone. What's the difference between a mapping drone and a spring drone?

Dilshan Benaragama: 13:34

This is a new um functionality. Maybe this came around five or six years ago because the drones we know in in agriculture or in other industries mainly used for mapping perspective to see things, to understand things and locate where the things are. But the the new addition is you can now apply things like apply inputs to agriculture. That's where the real function new functionality comes in for these drones. So, how they differ is in survey drones, map drones, they only have cameras as the payload. But the agriculture, the spray drones, uh additionally, they have this payload called they can have a tank and a spraying system that they can apply chemicals like liquid chemicals, plus additional tank for dry uh granules uh or the dry fertilizer or dry seeding perspective perspective, we can had have this kind of tank that holds the granular particles and it has a spreader system, it spreads these compounds. So that is a different functionality and different equipment are there.

Uduak Edet: 14:37

Which of these drone applications do you think have the biggest potential for growth?

Dilshan Benaragama: 14:42

Because of this new functionality of applying things, right? It can become a very good functionality for most of the farmers. For now, we are still at very infancy level uh using this technology, the application technology. But I think there's a lot of potential to grow, and we can discuss later how things are moving around. The mapping part, I would say, is rapidly gaining uh population among farmers because it's becoming uh easy technology, it's becoming more available and affordable for a farmer. The spraying side of things is fairly expensive compatibly, it needs a little bit of more training, more licensing requirements, which can be gonna be probably gonna discuss hopefully. And because of that, still there's a lag uh of adoption. But I would say both will be there in the future. But the speed of things depends on so many factors.

Uduak Edet: 15:32

You said it depends on different factors that would actually influence whether a spray drone would move more than a mapping drone. Like what factors you think would actually influence that that decision?

Dilshan Benaragama: 15:44

So, as I mentioned, it it mainly depends on one is the cost, initial cost. As I mentioned, the spray drones are expensive. We are talking about around 35,000, 45, 40,000 price range of a good uh spray drone compared to a 4,000, 5,000 level unmapping drone. And even the functionality is different, right? So if you needed that different functionality, you might want to have a spray drone. If you just want to do mapping and get a tool for decision making, you will go for a mapping drone. The other thing is there's a legal barrier. What we can spray, what we can't spray, what we can apply with agriculture drones in Western Canada, is a big there's a big kind of barriers, big kind of legal issues are there. So depending on that, uh the adoption rates and adoption is how farmers are gonna take off this technology is different. I would say those are the big two things.

Uduak Edet: 16:33

You talked about different things that you can actually use drones for applic um in agriculture. Is it something that the farmer can handle on their own or would require someone external to actually help them execute?

Dilshan Benaragama: 16:47

I believe you're referring to both mapping and applications, both?

Uduak Edet: 16:51

Yes, mapping on spring.

Dilshan Benaragama: 16:53

Yeah, I will start with the mapping part. Yeah, I would say mapping part is even I thought when I started, I didn't have any any clue of what a drone means and what type of software we need and how we can do that things. But within a couple of years, I realized that the technology is not that difficult, it's not that challenging as it thought. Because things are getting very easier these days, everything is automated. And if you have if you're a very low tech person, if you know how to uh do basic, how to operate a mobile phone, do some things, you will easily quickly you can learn how to fly a drone, how to mapping. Because the software, the the requirements are very highly integrated. Uh, if you take like I'm not it is not good that I'm using trade names, but if you take a like very common system, like DJI system is very, very easy to handle. They are inbuilt, they are software, how to deal with the whole process is very simple, simple, automated. I would say it's very easy. If you you only need one or two days training to get a hands-on experience, and then you can start working on by yourself. But when it comes to the other part of the things, application side of things, you need a little bit of advanced training uh because you need to think about how to map them first, and then how to use route planning like stuff, and then you need to know how things are being done, how to change all the parameters, because a lot of parameters come into action when you fly a spray drone compared to a mapping drone. So that needs advanced training, plus need more license, different license requirements as well.

Uduak Edet: 18:27

Let's dive into spraying drone a bit. What do farmers need to know before or do need to do before actually operating a spraying drone?

Dilshan Benaragama: 18:37

So that's a kind of broad question, actually. And yeah, and there are so many factors, and this is a problem with spray drones. A situation we are now in in Western Canada is a lot of buzz, a lot of talks are going on about spray drones. Some people are proposing it, some are opposing it, and a lot of people are talking about challenges. So there's so many things. But if I put it in a very kind of simplistic way, first thing is in Western Canada, you should you should know what are the regulations. That's the key thing. You can't just go and buy a drone and start spraying chemicals or start uh doing uh whatever you want because there are a lot of regulations because you're you're flying an equipment, it's a big equipment, very heavy, over 50 kilograms. Uh, the system is typically very high-weight system. You need a lot of training to fly it. You first thing is you need an advanced pilot certificate, and then once you have advanced pilot certificate, again, then you should know what things you can do and what things you can't do. First, they we can't apply any pesticides in Western Canada because they are not really yet legalized. So, only things that we can apply right now with the spray drone is their liquid fertilizers, or you can apply any liquid plant growth regulator like products. Plus, if you have a spreader system that is for uh the dry application, you can use fertilizer, granular fertilizer, or you can do seeding. So, those things you can do right now in your farm, right at the moment. So, that's legal aspects of it. First, you should know how to fly it properly with all these uh legal aspects, and then you should know what you can do with the spring. Those two things are very, very key things you know you should know, and then other things come in how you really do this thing. So, because there are a lot of issues with drift like stuff and how to plan it, it's not like it's different than you operating a ground system. So, a lot of other factors come in, so you should know all these factors, variables that can change your application efficiency. So, that part is again a big section that you have to understand.

Uduak Edet: 20:36

Well, let's wonder if I have an aircraft and I apply chemical, why can't I use drone to apply the same chemical? Is it not the same aerial application that both of them are doing? Why is a drone not allowed to apply chemical that an aircraft can apply?

Dilshan Benaragama: 20:51

No, you're right, exactly. Everybody thinks that way. Yeah, even I thought, why is this uh we are not allowed to spray herbicides or fungicides? Because we have seen people are using helicopters and planes to apply chemicals. The according to my understanding, use a product in your drone, it has to be labeled as it is, whether it can be applied in a using an airplane or helicopter or drone. So if the label doesn't say that this product can be applied using this equipment, you cannot use that. That is a legal barrier. Now the question comes why it can't be labeled directly from an aircraft to a drone, right? I think that's your main question. Is so what I what what I based on my understanding is that this is depends on how the chemical dynamics, the spray dynamics works between an aircraft, a helicopter, and a drone. Even though we think these three are three are the same aerial applications, they're different because each and every system creates a different type of spray dynamics. If you look at an airplane, uh we fly higher, it creates a drift, but the drift is kind of more regional, it's kind of more large-speaded drift. So it's a different problem. Then when you compare to a drone, you're flying it lower, low attitude, but it has propellers that create thrust. We call that downwash, right? Or propeller wash. So that is the down force that it creates, and that creates a different type of drift. So that is a problem that at the moment we are dealing with, how this drift is different from each system and what kind of repercussions it has in terms of efficiency, in terms of safety. So that's why we are now in a process. The PMRA, that is Health Canada agency that regulates all the chemicals, are working along to legalize this step-by-step, but have a separate label for drone application because they think that system is totally different than aircraft system because of these drift issues and safety issues.

Uduak Edet: 22:40

With this comparison, what advantages does spraying drone have over tracker-mounted sprayer or even aircraft?

Dilshan Benaragama: 22:48

That's again a very common and a very big question. So one is looking at what are the benefits, why we go should go for a drone, and what are the problems with it. So if you look at the how this system can have a functionality in our cropping systems in Western Canada, we have to think about it in different ways. So people talk about different ways, different people say, Oh, drones gonna can replace, cannot replace ground rigs or the ground sprayers, or drones cannot replace aircraft or helicopters. So it's still not about replacing the way I think it's not about replacing things, it's about how they complement more than replacing all if you look at first things. What are the key benefits? Is that one way people use this system is they can access terrain that is typically difficult to access with the ground rig. So if you have a slopey area, you have wet soils and you have more irregular fields where factors cannot move around. That is a big pace that these drones can fit in. So one of the big things is wet soils. So when the wet soil is wet, you can't put your ground system, and then you can probably you can use a drone because it doesn't do any, it doesn't have any issues with with a wet soil because it doesn't have any contact. So that's one of the biggest positive things about drones. You can fly a drone anytime just after rains, and you can just uh you can spray your chemicals because timing in Western Canada is number one, whether it's applying herbicides, fungicides. If you can't uh put your ground system in the right timing, then uh that will be a challenge. So then uh that is the main thing, and it even it can be used for any sloping areas, uh rolling hills, like something the irregular landscape. The other one is precision, that is where the airplanes or helicopters don't have it, can be more targeted spraying, so we can figure out where the locations we want to apply chemicals and use this system to just apply for that. GPS guided systems with mapping, that is the biggest advantage of drones having compared to any other uh system, and that way you can use reduced chemical up to 20 to 30 percent. That's in general use it. Then the other one is lower water use. Sometimes this uh with drones we can use less water than we use for a typical sprayer system, ground sprayer, because because of the the thrust it creates, it can penetrate the canopy. So that's where it is it needs less water water uh in use. So that is the three big things I would say as helpful for for a farmer to use this kind of drones. And another one I miss is less crop damage because when you're when you're driving your tractor uh on the ground, you're disturbing your crop. So big benefit again is when you're flying a drone, you don't do that trampling effect.

Uduak Edet: 25:22

Okay, you bought me in terms of trying to as say get it getting my own sprayer drone. If you want to advise farmers on what would be your advice in terms of what things they should they consider when they want to buy a drone for agricultural operation?

Dilshan Benaragama: 25:40

In general, it totally depends on your your capacity, level you want to learn things, uh how you can handle things, and how large is your farm, what type of preparations you have, uh, what type of capacity you have in terms of invest your time to learn these things. So, as I mentioned, there are so much uh levels of drones, levels of expertise you need. I would say uh the best way to start is if you have a farm that you want to really incorporate a drone. So start with a uh a basic level drone that can do mapping, do the mapping stuff, learn about drones with that small drones, uh cost effective. You can start mapping things, even if you don't know how to do mapping things, you can easily learn these things, and there are also service providers as well uh that helps you these kind of things, learn these things, and then start with mapping drones. And once you understand the mapping part of things, then you can switch into kind of using these application drones or the sprayer drones. When it comes to mapping drones, what you need again. So, as I mentioned, there are different types of levels, but the my kind of suggestion is to go with something around mid-range drone that has a multi-spectral sensor. If I give you a model for uh to be more particular, like a DJI Mavic 3 multi-spectral 3M model is very famous among farmers in in throughout the globe because it's cost-effective. Uh, it's around $7,000 drone. Uh, it is it has multi-spectral, that is five bands, RGB, near infrared, and red range. And that is a very good drone for a farmer. So you can do a lot of things get done with this kind of drone. When it comes to a spray drone, then it comes the capacity. You have different types of capacity, smaller drones, bigger drones. It depends on what type of things. If you want to do more patch spraying, spot spraying, you don't need bigger drones, you need medium size. When it comes to DJI series, that's what we have mainly in Canada is you can go with T25, T30, T50 legs, kind of medium to small scale drones. You don't need bigger drones for that because you are talking about spot spraying, not blanket spraying. And that's based on your need.

Uduak Edet: 27:43

But in your experience, what has been the main challenges farmers face when adopting drones for the agricultural operation?

Dilshan Benaragama: 27:51

I think the main problem is awareness. When I look at some of the surveys done by it in Canada, the number one thing that farmers always use is the technology by these GPS guided practice, yield monitors, like stuff. But the drones, using of drones and mapping stuff is still not that much being taken up. Mainly because they know they don't know what they can do. The other thing is the they are reluctant to learn those things. They think that is very expensive, plus, it needs a lot of training. So that is changing now because these drones are becoming more adaptable, very easy to handle, a lot of services available, training is available, and now things are coming better. But I would say these are the two things why it's it's not around much. We don't see much of the use of drones these days yet.

Uduak Edet: 28:39

How can governments facilitate the use and adoption of drones for agricultural purposes?

Dilshan Benaragama: 28:45

There's a lot of barriers. It can be legal barriers, technological barriers. So the one of the big things that government control is this legal barrier. I you need to have at least a basic license to fly a small drone. You uh you need a basic 20, 250 grams to 25 kilograms range, you need a basic license. Online examination, you have to do it and take that certificate. That's number one you need. So that is legal barrier. So you need the certifications, and then you go to another level, you need to go to advanced pipe. But this can be barriers, but it's good for everybody. You need this training, you need a proper understanding of this how the system works. But those can delay. But I'm not saying we don't need that. What I'm saying is the government can interfere with that, provide more training on this side of things, and make sure this licensing program is smooth and farmers aware about this licensing program. That is one part. Second part is the technology, how fast they go, what are the processes, what type of soft as people need. So those kind of things. Farmers with the government can interfere with training on this stuff, even funding universities, training colleges, uh, other organizations to provide more hands on experience to farmers are very important. This because hands on experience is critical. Because I don't think a lot of farmers have experience in this technology. They might have heard about this technology, but until they really use it, they don't understand. How it works that hands-on training should be provided by somehow gradually. So ID can you incorporate training programs at different levels from schools from universities to that level and/or directly to farm level.

Uduak Edet: 30:14

You talked about um where the technology is going. Like, where do you see the future of drone in agriculture over the next thing is?

Dilshan Benaragama: 30:21

So one thing is before before I come into that question, I'm I forgot to mention one point. A big thing that I I know the survey drone side of things, everybody are in the same page. We all know that's a good application side of things. We need to map because we have large farms, we can't monitor them by ourselves, we can use the technology, and there's no barriers for that. It's about the training, the tech the skill gap. When it comes to the application side of things, spray drones, we talk about it, the possibilities, the adoption rate, everything depends on how governments go through this regulation process of chemicals. My thinking is that sometimes people think in different ways of these things. People think, oh, these drones cannot replace spray equipment browning. So the first thing we have to understand is it is not about replacing it, but finding the functionality in the farm. What I see is these drones have a functionality beyond a spraying, we don't replace a conventional sprayer system. One big thing is spot spraying or precision application. Because if you look at all this precision equipment we have at the moment, the technology is very expensive. You take a John Deere tractor, having these spot spraying systems are very expensive, and I don't think also farmers have those access to equipment. But this drone can really replace that technology gap. So with low cost, you can have this spot spraying system or precision spraying system, even precision seeding systems you can use for the with this drone. So I see that there's a big fit in this kind of functionality. So what with that kind of my own personal thinking is that this technology is gonna be taken up by a lot of farmers in the future, depending on how fast the legalization happens for apply chemicals. That is the spray things. But when it comes to the mapping stuff, it's gonna go, it's gonna increase adaptation over time. And with the AI technology comes in, it's gonna speed up everything because AI is gonna make everything smooth and it's gonna make things easier. Even farmers can directly use this technology using AI technology, and I would say that's gonna make a huge difference in the future of adapting this technology.

Uduak Edet: 32:20

Is there anything you would like to share about the use of drone in agriculture?

Dilshan Benaragama: 32:26

In my perspective, drones in agriculture can do two things. One is it can directly influence farmers to advance their production systems, increase profitability, cut down cost. And that is one big thing that can change how we do agriculture. At the same time, for researchers like us, drones play a big role. So we do a lot of research with crop production. The research we do, we need a lot of data collection. So typically in conventional agriculture, when I did my master's PhD, we do a lot of ground data collection. We take a lot of time, spend a lot of money. It's not easy. But what I have realized is that these drones can change the whole the way we do research in the future. That's what I'm trying to do in my program as well. Try to develop these tools for research perspective. How to develop good crop management practices, collecting better data than what we did in the past. So that way, drones are gonna assist the research and development side of things in terms of agriculture. That's another big comment that we don't talk much. But a lot of researchers at the moment for breeding, for agronomy, for weed management, they're using these drones. That way, the farmers are gonna benefit again at the end because this technology comes in with that side of things of research and development. So that's kind of what I want to add. So production side of things, research side of things, I'm saying the drones are gonna be very critical. And satellite, you talk about, we didn't talk about satellite. Satellite technology is gonna is also advancing, but drones have its own niche, it has its own benefits, on technology that is different from satellites that we can apply. So that way, this has more accessible and cheaper, and it can be accessed at any time you want. So that way, drones provide kind of more broad range of functionality for farmers, for researchers as well.

Uduak Edet: 34:11

Are there any downside of using drones in agriculture compared to what farmers currently use now?

Dilshan Benaragama: 34:18

Definitely, any technology has its own benefits and downside. So when I when it when it comes to this technology again, uh the training part, it requires training, it requires the legal aspects, any technology. Maybe this part when it comes to the aerial side of things, we need to follow these more kind of uh legal barriers than any other equipment. With farmers using uh ground equipment, they don't have this kind of barriers. That is a downside, I would say. The second one, the the capacity, right? The tank capacity when it comes to spraying, it also is down. Still, we don't have that big capacity that we need, but I would say it's gonna develop, it's keep on keeping on developing these technologies, so the bigger tank sizes are coming along, and the other one is the battery life, like stuff. So battery is always a limitation. So for survey drones, I don't think it's a problem for now because our survey drones that we have, small drones, very efficient, they are really good uh in doing their job. But when it comes to the application side of things, like spray drones, like spreading applications, the battery is a huge problem that is always a barrier when it comes to this technology. I'm optimistic that this can be easily solved in the near future.

Uduak Edet: 35:27

How about safety concerns? Like, is there any safety consideration farmers need to take when either using mapping or even especially using a spraying drone?

Dilshan Benaragama: 35:37

Of course. Any when you deal with any equipment, all the safety concerns come in, even when you're applying chemicals or anything in the ground with using sprayer, the basic safety regulations there, and the same regulations apply to drones when you're applying chemicals. That is application side of things, all the safety, how to handle the chemicals uh in a safe manner to avoid exposure, like basic requirements is there that is applies. Plus, additional safety is about drift. We talk about it. So when you're applying aerial chemicals, there's always drift issues. Your neighboring farmer can get problems when you're spraying chemicals in the windy conditions. So the basic things you should not apply chemicals when it's windy days, so like stuff, those are very important safety concerns. And the other thing is flying, that's why we've been forced to take this training license and certificates because we should know what are the legalities of flying a drone. Because there are bystanders, there are if you're flying uh in an area where you're close to an airport, there are a lot of regulations, restrictions, safety issues, and sometimes you might see the crop dusters or the aeroplanes are flying around in your field, and when you're when you're flying a drone, that can cause conflicts. So those things that's safety issues. So that's why the legal system is very important uh to any country. We that's why we are going slowly in this kind of process. We have to go through certification, we have in terms of flying perspective and it comes to appliance chemicals. That's why we need labels, we need all the guidelines set up before a farm is gonna uptake this technology. So that's why it's taking some time.

Uduak Edet: 37:11

Thank you so much, Dr. Dilshan. Um, it's been a pleasure meeting you and learning more about drones and their application in agriculture. We are certainly looking forward to hearing more about your experience.

Dilshan Benaragama: 37:23

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me again. And it was so nice to talking to you about drones. And I'm really passionate about drones, and I'll be keeping understanding, exploring this drones technology and how we can assist farmers to take up this technology. I'm really excited about this talk today. Thank you very much.

Uduak Edet: 37:39

Thank you. And to our listeners, thank you, and please stay tuned for upcoming podcasts on the University of Manitoba's resources for agricultural engineering, your gateway to discovering the latest innovation, research, and practical solutions in agricultural engineering.