Huawei and Dronetech, Austria's largest drone service provider, announced new applications resulting from their collaboration in 5G smart farming.
Article continues below
At the Nussböckgut vineyard, a centuries-old estate in Upper Austria that was first mentioned in a document in 1323, the two companies provided an update on their pioneer project that started last year, and introduced how their 5G and IoT technologies can advance sustainability in agriculture.
The two companies also hosted a panel made up of digitalization and agriculture experts discussing how technology innovation, and 5G particularly, can promote sustainable farming amid rising global concerns for food security.
The two companies announced that their collaboration is entering the second phase called "Digital Sky". Huawei will provide cloud computing services on top of 5G, which will serve as the foundation for real-time artificial intelligence (AI) analysis.
Meanwhile, equipped with high-resolution cameras and sensors, Dronetech's drones will survey the land and objects, to capture images and data that will be processed by AI, and provide actionable findings to the users instantly.
The technology helps farmers detect small insects, monitor crop status and predict harvests, allowing them to optimize the use of water, chemicals and pesticides precisely, and with minimum waste.
In the second phase, the project also plans to develop a shared economy approach for drone services. Users from different sectors, including farmers, municipalities, corporates or individuals could rent the drones and their AI solutions for a wide range of applications, such as inspection of solar panels, traffic management, or power lines wear-out detection.
The biggest challenge for introducing 5G-enabled drones to agriculture is network coverage. Currently, 5G networks are primarily designed for end-user who are mostly at ground level or indoors. High-quality coverage for drones, which routinely fly 50 meters above ground, still needs to be developed. ■
A Fall heatwave will continue into the weekend over portions of the Desert Southwest and central/southern California as a persistent trend of upper-ridging over the region remains in place.