Farm Aerial:- Observer QX1
Farm Aerial Drones is providing farmers with system that captures high definition images and videos to help make better farm management decisions.
How it started.
Sebastian Ohirko – founder of the company have been interested in remote controlled flying platforms since his youth. Been experimenting with different remote controlled helicopters always trying to improve them. To make them useful in practical manner. The idea what driven him to the place he is today was to make use of that flying machines and bring measurable benefits to its users. He holds MSc in Management granted at Rzeszow University of Technology the only one in the country that awards degrees to civil aviation pilots. Studying at the Aviation Valley gave him opportunity to make conversations about newest technology and swap the UAV ideas with many industry enthusiasts and specialists. After graduating he moved to United Kingdom to work in agriculture at a large British farm. Two seasons spent on farm gained him valuable experience. Noticed then that many nowadays challenges which farm management is facing on a daily basis could be solved with the use of new technology. Remote aircraft experience, university knowledge and agriculture background allowed him to successfully start Farm Aerial Drones.
The company.
VISION
To help increase productivity of the agricultural industry with use of UAV systems.
MISSION
To provide agriculture industry with easy to use and affordable fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle systems.
GOAL Our goal is to provide arable & crop producers, consultants, and field interns with an easy to use and affordable fully autonomous unmanned aircraft system.
Farm Aerial Drones is small innovative company based in West Sussex, England. We believe that understanding customer needs is a key to success. The process of developing our final product involved industry specific technical background. After extensive research we had carefully chosen the base platform which was then converted, adopted and tested to meet our high standards and national regulations. Always having in mind ease of use our platform is flexible and it can accommodate various payload systems providing live video feed and comprehensive safety features. The Observer QX1 UAV system sold today by the company is the result of months of product
development and years of research by the company’s various suppliers. This research and development process allowed us to provide effective solution to the labor intensive job of crop scouting. By the continual research we are constantly working on offering cost effective and highly accessible innovative products and services. Our product is environmentally friendly – powered only by low noise electric motors it is CO2 emission free and will not disturb local wildlife with excessive noise or massive proportion. We work really hard to ensure that our products and service are best available on the market. We always encourage existing and future customers to cooperate with company. Their valuable thoughts and ideas directly reflects the actual products and its newer versions. Farm Aerial Drones is the first company on the globe to include high-tech tablet as a standard equipment in every of its UAV systems.
With Observer QX1 obtaining aerial images of farm area is finally easy, fast and affordable. The UAV.
Observer drone is a professional grade fully autonomous unmanned aircraft vehicle based on modified 3D Robotics frame setup featuring newest high-end Pixhawk 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 Processor autopilot. Combining that newest technology, resources, knowledge and know-how Farm Aerial Drones managed to develop Observer QX1 UAV system. Its targeted to meet demands of individuals and business users in agricultural industry by providing an essential tool to be used in precision agriculture.
Equipment
To be easy transportable between fields and farms whole Observer QX1 system comes in single durable transport case. Basic equipment include:
Observer QX1 drone
7″ Android Tablet Asus Nexus 7 16GB
7″ Video Downlink LCD Monitor
Camera GoPro Hero 3 Black edition WIFI 8GB
3 LiPo batteries with AC balance charger
4 Spare propellers
Handheld anemometer wind speed meter
Traditional radio controller
High visibility operator vest
Spare parts and tools
Instruction manual
Preflight safety data sheet
Responsive flight control and planning software.
We focus on the Observer QX1 system usability to be as simple as possible so anyone can use it. Whole system can be operated with included tablet or user choice laptop or smartphone after installing provided ground control software. User have possibility to plan a mission a day before at home and next day execute it on field in a minute. Another possibility is that user can plan the mission at office and remotely send the flight mission data in real time to the operator which is miles far away. Operator then execute that flight mission plan and send back obtained data to the office. That data can be also uploaded to cloud service so any authorized personnel can obtain it and make use of that information.
Easy to use intuitional flight planning software.
Acquiring aerial images newer been easier. Users just draw a polygon on area of interest and choose how they want the data to be collected. Software will automatically create optimal flight path which will be performed by aircraft. Then with press of one button sends Observer platform in air. Onboard computer with use of electronic sensors make adjustments for environmental factors such as wind conditions, atmospheric pressure, ground altitude and allow the aircraft to perform autonomous fly and collect data. After the data is collected, the system automatically returns to the starting point and lands on its own. Land position can be changed any time during flight so user can choose to land Observer on the other side of the field.
Hands off approach.
The development of the Observer QX1 autonomous unmanned system platform was a detailed process. To determine what current technology works best we investigated several available options. The team was formed in order to compare and test different approaches to that technology. End user was also included to provide his thoughts. We focused on taking all of the diagnostics, tuning, configuring stuff away from the customers. They can instead focus on what they want to survey or know about the field to help them make better further decisions. We had put a lot of technology into a small portable package to make it adaptive tool which will utilize well in agriculture.
Observer QX1 is a hands-off, reliable and easy to use UAV system so anyone can use it. Most important, user don’t need to be highly trained to use it neither don’t have to dedicate somebody to be an UAV operator
(Commercial operators in the UK should note that they will require CAA approved flight training. http://www.resource-uas.co.uk/ is our preferred training provider in the UK (ed))
