The University of Minnesota is continuing in the tradition of Norman Borlaug in the enhancement of farming output as noted in this report from BTN (Big Ten Network):
[Professor Ian] MacRae and his team are employing unmanned aerial drones to scrutinize vast farm fields in order to find pockets of insect pests. Once they’re detected, insecticides can be deployed in a targeted fashion instead of sprayed indiscriminately. …
“Within five to 10 years, we should be able to associate particular wavelengths of light with insect populations, with weed populations and with disease populations,” MacRae explained. “We’re going to see precision agriculture greatly assisted in a very, very short period of time.”
So farms will be beset by buzzing, big drones, possibly even carrying payloads of poison? Well, actually not so much buzzing, as reported by NewScientist (10 June 2015, paywall):
The GL-10 is the latest in a series of prototypes from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It is made from carbon fibre and has a wingspan of 3 metres. But its most unusual feature is the large number of engines, with eight on the wings and another two on the tail. One aim of this is to generate efficient electric propulsion, but the project also solves the problem of aircraft noise: several small motors are quieter than a few large ones.
The GL-10 also boasts novel Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller (LEAP) technology, which prevents the sound from the propellers combining into one loud noise or harmonic.
“Since we have many propellers, we can operate every motor at slightly different rpm [revolutions per minute],” says project controller Mark Moore. “We have a whole bunch of smaller harmonics and can spread them out across the frequencies. We call this frequency-spectrum spreading, and it’s only possible because we have many propellers and very precise digital control of them.”
This spectrum spreading means that the GL-10 is inaudible when it flies overhead at 30 metres. It can take off vertically, making it ideal as an urban parcel courier for payloads of 5 kilograms or less.
A light-weight report such as this doesn’t have time to dwell on the downside of this research, i.e., unforeseen consequences, so I’m left to wonder what ripple impact will work like this have on the ecology as the pests suffer population losses, their predators find food wanting, etc… and unforeseen positive impacts as well.
