Drones over the rice fields
Many Vietnamese farmers now hire drones to spray their rice instead of carrying a backpack sprayer. To fly just above the crop without hitting trees or power lines, a drone needs eyes too.
FARMING
Following the field
One popular drone model carries radar at the front and back to measure height and detect obstacles, plus two pairs of stereo cameras to see the terrain. When the field's edge rises, the drone climbs so the spray covers evenly.
THE NUMBERS
A hectare in minutes
With a 6-meter spray width at 6 meters per second, a drone covers one hectare in about four and a half minutes, not counting turns. Spraying by hand usually takes hours.
TRACTORS
Self-driving with stereo cameras
John Deere's self-driving tractor, launched in 2022, uses six pairs of stereo cameras to see all around. The company chose stereo cameras because they judge distance cheaply, the same two-eye principle from part 3.
CONSTRUCTION
Scanning the site
On building sites, LiDAR scans the structure under construction into a point cloud and overlays it on the 3D design. A column out of line or a wall in the wrong place shows up in red, so it can be fixed before the next floor is poured.
THE NUMBERS
Measuring a sand pile
To measure a pile of sand, a drone scans it and adds up the height of every small square. The channel tested a pile 3 meters high and 10 meters wide and got 79 cubic meters, less than 1 percent off.
This article is based on the video Crop-spraying drones, self-driving tractors, site scans from the Mark học AI channel. Watch the video (in Vietnamese) to see the animations.
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