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Transcript:
Voiceover: Technology is transforming farming faster than ever — and drones are leading the charge. From scanning vast fields for pests and disease to spraying pesticides and nutrients with pinpoint precision, drones are helping farmers save time, money and resources. Now, the Precision Horticulture Lab at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is taking it one step further. At UGA’s Tifton campus, a team of scientists is developing a game-changing mobile platform —the Drone Dock — a refueling and reloading station designed for large drones that cover hundreds of acres at a time. Luan Oliveira: What we wanted with Drone Dock was a platform, a fully automated platform to support spray drone operations. The grower, on a daily basis, when he’s spraying the crops, he needs to dose the chemicals using volumetric cylinders,and then there’s also a mixture, a chemical mixing operation that the growers have to do. With the Drone Dock, we can do that automatically with the app that we also developed for the platform. Voiceover: Like most modern technology, the Drone Dock comes with its own app. Developed in-house, it gives farmers complete control, from adjusting spray mixture ratios to setting precise application rates, all from their phone or tablet. Marcelo Barbosa: So, the main idea behind this project was also to develop something user friendly. So we developed a mobile app. So the end user just needs to open the app and input some information like area, the application rate, and also be able to select up to three chemicals to prepare an application mixture and deliver into the drone. Voiceover: The Drone Dock is still in development, but when it's ready for market, it promises to transform farm operations, making drone use faster, more efficient and more sustainable. Marcelo Barbosa: It reduces the human exposure to chemicals. So the robot calculates and measures everything by itself, so we don’t need to have any contact with the chemicals. This project also helps us with environmental impact. So we have reduced a lot the amount of chemicals used in the mixing process. And economically, once we are saving some of those inputs, we are also saving money. So, those are three of the main impacts we have with this platform. Voiceover: The innovation is already turning heads.The Drone Dock team recently took home the Grand Prize Innovation Award in the Farm Robotics Challenge, and they’re not stopping there. Luan Oliveira: What we envision for the future is that the drone is going to leave your home automatically with Drone Dock, which is an autonomous robot. It’s going to go to the field and then as soon as it gets to that point, it takes off, sprays,comes back, gets refuelled, and do the same operation over and over. Also in the future, we’re going to develop a platform that’s going to support other robotic operations. Voiceover: From the first seed sown to the final harvest, technology is leading a vision for smarter, more sustainable farming. With innovations like the Drone Dock, the future of agriculture is taking flight — right here in Georgia.
