Agricultural Drones (Research Paper Sample)

Agricultural Drones
Student Name
University Affiliation
Agricultural Drone
Introduction
Drones have revolutionized commercial agriculture. According to Vroegindeweij, Van Wijk and Van Henten (2014), this advancement has extensive application in pest, disease and weed control, manure application and animal husbandry. Nonetheless, use of agricultural drones is not a bed of roses. Several developments are required to make them safe, secure, accurate and less intrusive to people’s privacy (Vroegindeweij, Van Wijk and Van Henten, 2014).In this research, the different aspects of agricultural drones will be investigated. The paper will start with a brief overview of agricultural drones (technologies used and applications in agriculture). It will, then, provide a concise discussion of a major problem associated with drones. Although agricultural drones have a number of problems, only security issues will be addressed in this paper.
Overview of Agricultural Drones
In the US, agricultural drone are relative cheap, and have advanced sensors and imaging abilities (Anderson, 2014). Hence, farmers have a cheaper way of increasing yields and reducing crop damage and failure. People using this technology are not your ordinary farmer, but UAVs operators employing sensors and robotics to acquire data in a bid to precision agriculture. "Agricultural drones are simple aircrafts fitted with the autopilot (no physical pilot is required) using GPS and a standard point-and-shoot camera controlled by the autopilot" (Anderson, 2014, para.2). With the help of software, high-resolution mosaic maps are generated from the aerial shots. The software also plans the flight path, with special emphasis on maximizing coverage and optimization of images for an excellent analysis.
Drones are useful to farmers, providing that they are used correctly. Anderson (2015) provided three ways in which drones are advantageous to a farmer. Firstly, visualizing crops from above the air can reveal patterns of all issues facing them, from an irrigation crisis, soil problems to pest and disease infestation. If a particular part of a 200-acre piece of land is infested with weeds or pests, farmers spray the whole farm. With drones, only the infested parts can be spot sprayed. Hence, a farmer saves the time he could have taken to walk around the entire acreage. As well, spot-spraying saves the farmer a great deal of input. You can’t compare the amount of chemicals used to spray the entire farm with that used in spot-spraying. Most importantly, the benefits of using little amounts of chemicals on the environment are immense. Livestock farmers or ranchers also stand to benefit from UAVs. For instance, UAVs can be used to monitor the health, feeding and other habits of livestock and making certain that all livestock is accounted for. Secondly, airborne cameras, with infrared capabilities, can capture images that can’t be seen with human eye. This capability provides greater precision in identifying and dealing with farming problems. Lastly, drones monitor farms throughout. These surveys are combined to come up with a time-series animation. Anderson (2015) stated that this imagery shows real-time changes in the crop, revealing problems or prospects for good crop management.
Security associated with Agricultural Drones
Just like other types of UAVs, agricultural drones have some worries. In fact, they share similar concerns with other drones, like safety, data security, insurance privacy and safety. To me, security issues are the biggest problem facing this technology. Drones have been hacked several times. Carr (n.d) gave an example of an incident that took place in 2011 at the University of Texas at Austin in which researchers hacked a drone belonging to the Department of Homeland Security. This drone was brought under the control of students and their professor. The research team achieved this by spoofing the drone’s GPS signal. After this occurrence, it was evident that drones are not totally secure. Similarly, agricultural drones can be hacked and misused, or the data gathered lost. Security of the control stations on the ground and the data link infrastructure is also a critical requirement for an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) (Carr, n.d.). Like an Air Traffic Control System, UASs control drones. If outsiders find it easy to manipulate UASs, the consequences might be devastating. For instance, terrorists can use UAVs in carrying bombs (as flying missiles) to harm people. Besides, they can gain control of the drones for surveillance against marked targets or put them into any other unimaginable use. Drug smugglers, who implant drugs in humans and animals, will also have no problems developing their drones or diverting a clean drone to their activities by pretending to be farmers.
Countering agricultural drone’s security concerns is paramount for the growth of this sector. The entrance of drones in the agricultural and other domestic spheres indicates that this technology is gaining widespread acceptance in domestic use. For instance, in 2012 the US was planning to approve 30, 0000 drones to be used in the domestic airspace alone (Schlag, 2013). Therefore, it’s critical to address the security disquiet posed by these aircrafts in the US airspace. Addressing the security issues related to agricultural drones and other UAVs is twofold: technical and legislative. For that reason, changes must be made on the technical capability of the UASs and relevant laws must be enacted (Carr, n.d.).
During a congressional hearing, Professor Todd Humphrey, the leader of the University of Texas team that hacked the Department of Homeland Security drone, suggested that UAVs over 18lbs must be fitted with anti-spoofing technologies (Carr, n.d.). Thus, for UAVs to be spoof-proof, some new technologies must be brought on board to allow the UAS to notice modified GPS information from an external source (Carr, n.d.). Humphrey suggested some technologies to secure UAVs in the future (Car, n.d.). First, he proposed including a Jamming-to-Noise sensor on civilian drones to detect surpluses in radio signals originating from the GPS spoofer. The sensor can also selectively ignore additional forged data in the transmission. Secondly, he suggested "installing multiple frequency receivers on UAVs to receive multiple GPS and cross-referencing civilian and military GPS" (Carr, p.21). Even so, there must be precautionary measures in adopting the military anti-spoofing technology because it’s very expensive. A cheap alternative must be sought to avoid crippling or slowing down the agricultural drone industry. Carr, n.d) claimed that in addition to keeping the GPS safe from interference, it’s critical to protect the common data link (CDL). The CDL connects UAVs with the remote control station on the ground. It’s worth noting that a disruption in data links can occur anytime, both incidentally and maliciously. These occurrences were common with the US military drones during the Iraq and Afghanistan missions (Carr, n.d.).
Schlag (2013) stated that there are no specific legislations regulating the domestic use of drones. Hence, agricultural drones can be used in a manner that poses serious security questions. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is given the powers to license and regulate the operation of aircrafts (Schlag, 2013). However, the regulation of d...