Today Trimble announced the addition of its Trimble UX5 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to their agriculture products portfolio for aerial imaging and mapping. The system provides farmers’ trusted advisors—such as agronomists, Trimble resellers, and other Ag service providers—with a powerful data collection tool that can aid with recommendations to improve farming operations.

The new product can to easily capture aerial images for scouting and monitoring crop health such as detecting pests, weeds and nitrogen deficiencies. It can even locate cattle and what forage they have available over large areas, measure crop height and generate topographic maps and models for land leveling and drainage applications.

Trimble UX5 flies at 50 mph and is stable in crosswinds and even light rain. In a 50 minute flight it will cover a two sqare kilometer area at five centimeter image resolution. The camera can capture the near-infrared spectrum, which helps in deducing vegetation indexes for crop health assessment. The output of a single flight provides geo-referenced precision images, a digital surface model (DSM) showing elevations as a color image and a dense 3D point cloud that includes elevations.

“The addition of the Trimble UX5 system strengthens our agriculture product portfolio and enables us to provide a solution that benefits a broad range of customers including growers, ranchers, water management contractors, agronomists and other Ag service providers,” said Joe Denniston, vice president of Trimble’s Agriculture Division. “High-speed aerial imaging is a powerful tool that can quickly and easily locate problem areas to be addressed. The faster a problem area is discovered, the better the chance it can be evaluated and resolved before crop yield is impacted.”

Trimble provides training for system operators and their observers, which focuses on safety precautions and the application of the UAS. Trimble UX5 system is available from Authorized Agriculture Distribution Partners and is subject to regulations and restrictions defined by local civil aviation authorities. Unmanned aircraft systems are currently not allowed to be flown in some regions or for certain applications. For more information on the Trimble UX5 system, visit.