The use of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) has increased dramatically from when the first recognized UAS known as the Kettering Bug was invented in 1917 by Charles Kettering and used as a bomb payload (National Museum of US Airforce, 2015) to today where they are used for almost everything the Manned Aircraft System (MAS) does.
One of the UAS use is for Precision Agriculture where the UAS is used to monitor crop growth and check for pest like insects, birds, rodents and weeds (Bailey, 2016). They are also used today to spray farm land with pesticide (Mosvitch, 2015). The reason why there has been an increase in its use in agriculture is it is more safer to use as compared to the crop dusters. While the MAS have been used for agriculture for a long time for doing the same task above, the safety record is appalling with a total of 75 accident and eight fatalities in 2015 reported to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and this rate was relatively low compared to previous years (Lavender, 2016).
Another use of UAS is for surveillance to support mission related to kidnapping, search and rescue operations, and fugitive investigation (Alderton, 2015) and it has been very successful in this missions. The reason for its success is that unlike the MAS, the UAS can gain access into any space and hence could retrieve the required information needed by law enforcement in order to act but this is impossible to achieve using the MAS.
Even though we can all see the benefit in using UAS, there are still some kick back from agricultural MAS operators stating that its uses is causing a safety concern to them (Bernett, 2015) and other agencies requesting police to obtain warrant in order to use the UAS (Alderton, 2015) but I believe with time this will no longer be a problem.
Reference
Alderton, M (2015, April 30). To the Rescue! Why Drones in Police Work Are the Future of Crime Fighting. https://lineshapespace.com/drones-in-police-work-future-crime-fighting/
Bailey, A (2016, January 21)Farmers at Precision Agriculture summit learn about UAS http://www.uasmagazine.com/articles/1399/farmers-at-precision-agriculture-summit-learn-about-uas
Bennett, C (2015, December 1). Ag Pilot Concerns Grow Over UAV Safety
http://www.agweb.com/article/ag-pilot-concerns-grow-over-uav-safety-naa-chris-bennett/
Lavender, B (2016, January). NTSB 2015 Final Report
http://agairupdate.com/article_detail.php?_kp_serial=00002726
Moskvitch, K (2015, July 14). Agricultural drones: the new farmers market
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2015/07/farming-drones.cfm
National Museum of US Airforce (2015, April 7). Kettering Aerial Torpedo "Bug"
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/MuseumExhibits/FactSheets/Display/tabid/509/Article/198095/kettering-aerial-torpedo-bug.aspx
John,
ReplyDeleteYour post was very interesting as it provided a lot of historical facts. However, I believe you hit on one of the important issues that we haven't really discussed yet; the role struggles between manned versus unmanned aviation pilots. This struggle may not be well publicized but it is an issue and plays a role in the push back on getting UAS integrated into the NAS. The Army's Aviation Community is slowly accepting this huge personnel and equipment change and has taken steps to redesign the organizational infrastructure of our battlefield units to take advantage of UAS in support of the mission on the battlefield. Appreciate the shared knowledge - well written post!
The use of UAS in agriculture in regards to crop dusting is a very important development. I've been studying the Yamaha RMAX for my UAS Platform Analysis Project and learned of its success over the past 20 years in Japan, Australia and China. Over 2,600 RMAX operate in these countries and are used extensively for spraying applications over rice fields. The U.S. division of Yamaha has presented an application for a Certificate of Authorization for use of the RMAX in the US (Yamaha Motor Corporation, 2014). The aircraft is still awaiting the approval process.
ReplyDeleteYamaha Motor Corporation. (2014). Petition for exemption
for the RMAX remotely-piloted helicopter. Retrieved from http://www.agaviation.org/Files/eNewsletters/2014/July/Yamaha_Motor_Corporation_-_Exemption_Rulemaking%20(2).pdf