One of the most popular displays at the recent American Society of Farm Managers & Rural Appraisers annual meeting along with the AgroNomics Conference and Trade Show was a company called WineHawk Labs. So popular, in fact, that Chuck could only catch up with them after he got back home! But he was finally able to talk with Pat Lohman, WineHawk’s VP for Business Development, who explained a little bit about the company’s hawk-looking drone for ag purposes.
“We make a two-pound, autonomous drone that is centered around data collection,” Lohman said. He added that while there is a lot of great technology out there that analyzes and collects data, WineHawk is different in that it is offering a better collection platform. “We can actually pick up imagery down to two millimeters per pixel, so we’re looking at a lot higher resolution shots than you’d find with satellites or manned aviation. Plus we can carry a multi-spectral camera.”
Plus, the system is pretty much autonomous… just launch it, and the WineHawk senses where to go and even comes back to its launch site and lands automatically before the batteries runs out. And if you think it looks like a real hawk, that’s on purpose. It will help scare away any birds that might eat your crop, especially fruit crops.
Listen to Chuck’s interview with Pat here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/asfmra/asfmra-12-winehawk.mp3″ text=”Interview with Pat Lohman, WineHawk Labs”]