Drones take flight again

Drones have to be kept at least 30 metres away from public areas, but organisers will allow practical demonstrations in the zone where precision farming equipment is shown several hundreds metres from the main display areas.

Shuttle buses will be available to run field day visitors to that area.

Drones debuted only last year at the field days.

Exhibitors will include Shenzen Eagle Brother UAV Technology Co Ltd, whose products include agricultural drones.

Robotic Systems, based at Newcastle, will release its first commercial product, a drone it has developed which is capable of using aerial scanning equipment to monitor crop health using infrared images.

The company’s software engineer Cameron Owen expects it will have “massive” applications once farmers see the value of the technology.

“It can show where crops are stressed before it is visually noticeable,” he said.

Mr Owen said drones were likely to have numerous applications in agriculture.

“But most of the applications have not been thought of yet.”

New England Instrument Co will show several drone models which it has just started to sell. It stocks the Phantom 3 and Phantom 4 models made in China by DJI, the largest drone-maker in the world. Manager Brett Peters said most of the company's sales of drones so far had been to government departments and earth moving companies.

“There has not been a large demand from farmers. That's why we want to push them at AgQuip", he said.

Mr Peters said the drones were equipped with video cameras and farmers could see what the drone was seeing by using their i-Phones or tablet. Farmers could use them to check whether water tanks or troughs were dry or see if there were any cattle in the back paddock, for example. Mr Peters said the DJI drones came in standard, advanced and professional models.

He recommended farmers got the professional model because its features were better suited to the kind of task farmers might use them for.