Agricultural News
First Autonomous U.S. Built Aerial Crop Production System Available for Pre-Order Now
Tue, 06 Sep 2022 15:23:12 CDT
Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is featuring content from Farm Broadcaster, Ken Root’s podcast during his visit to the Farm Progress Show in Iowa as he speaks with the President, CEO, and co-founder of Guardian Agriculture, Adam Bercu.
Guardian Agriculture exhibited the Guardian SC1 at the Farm Progress Show, a drone standing five feet tall with skids on the bottom that can be used for spraying farms.
“We are a bunch of motor and battery and liquid dynamics experts out of Boston, Massachusetts and we saw a huge need,” Bercu said.
Bercu said after seeing small drones in Asia being utilized frequently, they had the idea to create a tool for growers to use on their acres in the United States. With this tool, Bercu said the goal was to improve payload, reliability, and usability for the American grower.
“It is an all-electric unit,” Bercu said. “It is a lithium cobalt battery pack that we make ourselves.”
“Unlike the smaller Chinese units, we don’t switch the battery between runs, we supercharge the battery,” Bercu said. “So, on a four-minute flight, you land, you plug in and in about two minutes, the payload is topped off and the battery is good to go, and you can take off again.”
The drone consists of four electric propulsion motors with 63-inch propellers, Bercu said that are about 18 horsepower, which offers plenty of tight control and the horsepower needed to adjust the altitude over uneven terrain or quick turns and wind rejection.
Bercu said this drone has an 18-inch spray boom. Many drones imported from overseas have nozzles directly underneath the propellers and rely on the air dispersion of those propellers to act as a dispersal for the swatch, he added, which is uneven and unreliable.
“We want a real even distribution pattern and something that folks can actually work on,” Bercu said. “If you look at our spray setup between our ace pump and banjo fittings, this is something that folks can work on and modify to suit their needs and we encourage that.”
A key point in how many acres can be sprayed in one day is how many acres can be sprayed in one run, Bercu said, which is the payload of the aircraft. The first drone introduced to the marketplace, he added, will have a 20-gallon tank, and tank capacity will increase as time goes on in later models.
Bercu said this drone will be useful in more urban regions where airplanes can’t fit into tight areas, or for specialty crops such as fruits and vegetables that require a high spray frequency. The drone can also be useful to spray field crops in areas that might have a lot of wind turbines or other structures that make it more difficult for an airplane to do it’s job, he added.
“The aircraft and the supercharger and the control station all together is $119,000,” Bercu said. “A big takeaway is we have been working with the FAA (Farming Aviation Administration) on the licensing required, and you do not need a pilot’s license or anything like that to spray it. The job is very different, and the robot flies itself. There are no control sticks for up, down, left, or right- it is all pre-mapped and pre-programmed.”
To fly this aircraft, Bercu said people will need to acquire an FAA Part 107, which is the commercial drone license that any drone pilot of any size needs.
“You also need a class 2 medical, which is easier to get than a CDL medical,” Bercu said. “You also need to pass what is called the Part 137 Knowledge and Skills test which teaches you about drift and wind sheer on the nozzles and other aerial application concerns. You need your state application license and also an FAA-approved 2-week training course with us.”
The interest in this aircraft, Bercu said, has been phenomenal.
“We have about 500 pre-orders,” Bercu said.
Those interested can visit the Guardian Agriculture website by clicking here.
On the website, pre-orders are currently being accepted with a fully refundable deposit of 500 dollars. Orders now are expected delivered is the first quarter of 2024.
Click the LISTEN BAR below to listen to Adam Bercu talk about the latest innovation in crop protection systems.
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