Drones for Agriculture: Prepare and Design Your Drone (UAV) Mission

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18.00 Educational Hours
Intermediate
Language :
English
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About this Course

We are all getting familiar with the image of a drone in the sky. Although flying a drone is fun, drones are not toys. More and more UAVs or drones are used by governments and companies to gain answers and insights on nature, agricultural and metropolitan challenges among other fields. For example, small Drones/UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Systems) are employed in agriculture for crop observation, crop monitoring, field analysis and map generation through aerial surveys. And with the available software and 'mission planning tools' market growing, so is the demand for knowledge and understanding about its usage and limitations.

Our top professors of the 'Information Technology Group' and the 'Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing group' of Wageningen University & Research will teach you whether it makes sense to use drones for your application, challenge or question. You will learn how to plan an end-to-end mission (from image acquisition to data visualization) for your specific drone application and how to execute a drone mission safely. Afther finishing the MOOC Drones for Agriculture: Prepare and Design Your Drone (UAV) Mission, you will have gained full understanding of the aerial mapping workflow and how to implement it in a programmable small drone. You will know which steps you need to take to gain the valuable insights you are looking for.

Do I need a drone to complete this course?
No! You do not need a drone to complete this course. For all the assignments and exercises we will provide the necessary material (in case it is needed). But, we expect to pick your curiosity with this course and hopefully nudge you into buying one and joining the community ;).

For whom
Although the course is initially made for agriculture technicians, researchers or graduate students from multidisciplinary technical fields, everyone that aims to learn how to use an off-the-shelf small drone for generating a high-resolution image from a field, or has a general high interest in drones, is very welcome.

Instructors

Dr. Ir. Lammert Kooistra
Dr. Ir. Lammert Kooistra

Dr. Lammert Kooistra is associate professor and researcher at the Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing (GRS). His research interests include the development of integrated sensing systems, combining satellite, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and in situ sensors for monitoring applications in agriculture and environmental resource management. He focuses on hyperspectral sensing systems from camera design to data processing into quantitative image products.

Sensing a Changing World My research interest is in the development of integrated sensing systems, combining satellite, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and in situ sensor for monitoring applications in agriculture and environmental resource management. Starting point of system development is the user-perspective with operational requirements regarding timing, spatial detail and product quality. The flexibility of UAS provides an excellent platform for innovative sensing systems. In my research I focus on hyperspectral sensing systems from camera design to data processing into quantitative image products. website: www.wur.eu/uarsf..

Dr. João Valente
Dr. João Valente

Dr. João Valente is Assistant Professor in the Information Technology Group (INF) from the Wageningen University & Research (WUR). He received is PhD in Robotics and Automation, from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) in 2014 with cum laude and he was awarded three times for the best PhD Thesis in the academic and industrial sector. He has been working with UAVs and field robotics for more than 15 years. His research focus in developing intelligent flying machines that touch, smell and see for solving agri-food and ecology management problems, while bridging the gap between UAVs and people. He is author of more than 50 publications in this topic.

Furthermore, he is also the head of the Social Artificial Intelligent Drones Lab (aka. Social Drones Lab) that focus in developing intelligent (human-like) drones to help farmers in farm management tasks but also to help other application experts, such as ecologists, to have more insights about our planet.

Beside drones, the SAID Lab is also working on giving special powers to farmers in order to transform them in super heroes. In 2020 the Cyborg Farmer was presented at the Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven.

Dr. João Valente team is composed by 2 Postdoc, 6 PhD students and several MSc and BSc students. Additionally, he has graduated more than 20 MSc students from more than 10 chair and 4 science groups in the WUR.

Finally, he is PI in 2 NWO projects (MARS4EARTH and FIELDS2COVER), 1 H2020 project (FLEXIGROBOTS), and researcher in the Erasmus+ project VIRAL.