Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles Help Farmers Manage Irrigation
By Jacie Fasselin
Utah Statesman Staff Writer
When watching the skies around Utah State University, students can rest assured that those UFOs are not piloted by aliens. Rather the UFOs are actually UAVs, Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles, created by USU scientists. Researchers at USU's Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL) and researchers at the Center for Self-Organizing Intelligent Systems teamed-up to produce the unmanned aircrafts that have the technology to help Utah farmers better manage precious irrigation water, said Mac McKee, director of UWRL.
As residents of the second driest state in the nation, Utah agriculturists can afford to waste very little water. The project began when scientists recognized a need for more accurate data relating to irrigation systems, he said. McKee said the research team consisting of Mckee, YanQuan Chen, Wei Ren, Hi-Fang Dou and several engineering students. Director of the UWRL Mac Mckee said that without realizing the amount of money it would take and without knowing how hard it would be the team looked to UAVs to solve the problem. There would be a lot of learning to do.
"Two years ago this month we had never flown an aircraft," he said.
Satellite technology existed but could not provide specific information, Mckee said.
"We needed finer resolution in space and finer resolution in time," Mckee said.
The unmanned airplanes are able to take pictures of irrigated lands at a resolution high enough to determine the amount of moisture on the surface of the soil. The UAVs are also equipped with artificial intelligence. This intelligence allows researchers to load flight plans and landing sequences. The procedures are completed without assistance from researchers on the ground.
Software also developed by researchers at USU is installed on the planes to collect soil surface moisture data. The data is then used to project the amount of moisture in the soil profile.
Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering said, "The ability to acquire decision-relevant data on soil moisture and evapotranspiration in a timely fashion and at a low cost will enable canal companies and irrigation districts in the state to provide highly detailed information to farmers about soil moisture condition in individual fields."
The goal is to use the new technology to determine areas that are currently being over watered and to project future water demands allowing canal companies to better manipulate canal water levels for less seepage or lost water. Water savings could be as much as 5 percent or more of current deliveries - that kind of savings is invaluable, Chen said.
Agriculture is not the only application for UAVs, "There is a huge array of applications, we just picked the hardest one to start with," said McKee, "We are now developing and testing the electronics that will allow us to track radio-tagged game and fish."
This application will allow trackers to find fish in a 40 mile stretch of river in under an hour. UAVs will save time and money. Traditional methods of fish tracking entailed floating rivers in boats searching for fish for hours, Mckee said.
The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has also expressed interest in utilizing the UAVs to monitor roads and surrounding vegetation, Mckee said.
USU is not the first to develop UAVs, Austin Jensen research engineer acknowledged, but, "Everything everyone else is doing is military-related."
The UAVs designed at Utah State are not only effective but they are also relatively inexpensive, "Unmanned autonomous vehicles, or UAVs, can help provide objective information . . . on the cheap," said Mckee.
Instead of creating a UAV for $150,000 military budget, the UWRL team had to do something similar for under $1,000 per unit.
The UAVs' wings are constructed from Styrofoam and have a six foot wingspan and weigh four pounds on average, explained Mckee. The light weight aircrafts can carry up to three pounds of payload and each aircraft is equipped with an on-board computer and GPS unit.
Mckee believes that the attributes of this particular design will allow the University to start a successful business venture, "If the research and development efforts can produce or are successful in producing a series of products that have value in the private sector, I can see the University spinning this into a private company. It [the project] would basically pay for itself."
- jacie.fasselin@aggiemail.usu.edu
Utah Statesman Staff Writer
When watching the skies around Utah State University, students can rest assured that those UFOs are not piloted by aliens. Rather the UFOs are actually UAVs, Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles, created by USU scientists. Researchers at USU's Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL) and researchers at the Center for Self-Organizing Intelligent Systems teamed-up to produce the unmanned aircrafts that have the technology to help Utah farmers better manage precious irrigation water, said Mac McKee, director of UWRL.
As residents of the second driest state in the nation, Utah agriculturists can afford to waste very little water. The project began when scientists recognized a need for more accurate data relating to irrigation systems, he said. McKee said the research team consisting of Mckee, YanQuan Chen, Wei Ren, Hi-Fang Dou and several engineering students. Director of the UWRL Mac Mckee said that without realizing the amount of money it would take and without knowing how hard it would be the team looked to UAVs to solve the problem. There would be a lot of learning to do.
"Two years ago this month we had never flown an aircraft," he said.
Satellite technology existed but could not provide specific information, Mckee said.
"We needed finer resolution in space and finer resolution in time," Mckee said.
The unmanned airplanes are able to take pictures of irrigated lands at a resolution high enough to determine the amount of moisture on the surface of the soil. The UAVs are also equipped with artificial intelligence. This intelligence allows researchers to load flight plans and landing sequences. The procedures are completed without assistance from researchers on the ground.
Software also developed by researchers at USU is installed on the planes to collect soil surface moisture data. The data is then used to project the amount of moisture in the soil profile.
Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering said, "The ability to acquire decision-relevant data on soil moisture and evapotranspiration in a timely fashion and at a low cost will enable canal companies and irrigation districts in the state to provide highly detailed information to farmers about soil moisture condition in individual fields."
The goal is to use the new technology to determine areas that are currently being over watered and to project future water demands allowing canal companies to better manipulate canal water levels for less seepage or lost water. Water savings could be as much as 5 percent or more of current deliveries - that kind of savings is invaluable, Chen said.
Agriculture is not the only application for UAVs, "There is a huge array of applications, we just picked the hardest one to start with," said McKee, "We are now developing and testing the electronics that will allow us to track radio-tagged game and fish."
This application will allow trackers to find fish in a 40 mile stretch of river in under an hour. UAVs will save time and money. Traditional methods of fish tracking entailed floating rivers in boats searching for fish for hours, Mckee said.
The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has also expressed interest in utilizing the UAVs to monitor roads and surrounding vegetation, Mckee said.
USU is not the first to develop UAVs, Austin Jensen research engineer acknowledged, but, "Everything everyone else is doing is military-related."
The UAVs designed at Utah State are not only effective but they are also relatively inexpensive, "Unmanned autonomous vehicles, or UAVs, can help provide objective information . . . on the cheap," said Mckee.
Instead of creating a UAV for $150,000 military budget, the UWRL team had to do something similar for under $1,000 per unit.
The UAVs' wings are constructed from Styrofoam and have a six foot wingspan and weigh four pounds on average, explained Mckee. The light weight aircrafts can carry up to three pounds of payload and each aircraft is equipped with an on-board computer and GPS unit.
Mckee believes that the attributes of this particular design will allow the University to start a successful business venture, "If the research and development efforts can produce or are successful in producing a series of products that have value in the private sector, I can see the University spinning this into a private company. It [the project] would basically pay for itself."
- jacie.fasselin@aggiemail.usu.edu
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