Drones
How to Have Global Impact
Droneseeding is a game-changer for one reason: the numbers. One team with two operators flying twelve drones can plant hundreds of thousands of seeds in a single day. One small team can plant hundreds of millions of seeds in a few months. Imagine 500 teams planting 15 billion seeds in one year.
Numbers like these can have global impact.
Radical scalability is droneseeding’s great advantage. Whether 5 teams or 5,000 the technology stays the same. The fleets are automated. They can work 24/7. They can go where we can’t. They’re reliable and efficient. They’re cheaper, faster, and safer than planting by hand. And if these aren’t enough reasons to level up, the more we scale them up the more cost-effective they become.
Droneseeding is how we scale it all up.
Droneseeding is made possible by recent innovations in AI, big data, robotics, and our in-development Seedpod Ejection Device (SEEDer). Big Ag already uses drones to spread fertilizer, track disease, reduce costs, and increase yields. We repurpose these heavy-lift drones and outfit them for ecological restoration. Like Big Ag we can dramatically increase “yields” as well as reduce costs. Smart farming becomes smart restoration.
How it works: first, smaller drones 3D map the terrain with LiDAR and spectral analysis. Then heavy-lift drones operated from a mobile field station follow in pre-programmed planting patterns, disseminating biodegradable seedpods with primed seeds and optimized inoculants. Non-toxic herbicides, pesticides, and predator repellent can be included in the seedpod or programmed after planting in targeted applications. Post-planting monitoring includes plant health indices and a broad spectrum of analytics.
Swing for the fences.
Our goal is fielding hundreds of droneseeding teams to plant 15 billion trees in one year. 15 thousand million is a staggering number but we know that even these colossal numbers are not enough: 15 billion merely offsets the 15 billion much larger trees we lose every year.
Specs
SuperVolo
A long-range vertical take-off and landing UAS engineered for diverse payload configurations, this is our mapping and data-gathering drone. It has a self-charging hybrid gas/electric system for extended endurance.
- Maximum flight time: 8 hours.
- Maximum speed: 75mph/120kph.
The sensing elements analyze large tracts in minute detail including speciation, wildlife, invasives, competition density, etc. State-of-the-art spectral analysis also allows us to determine critical surface details including canopy height and soil moisture. In the near future as the technology unfolds, we’ll be able to measure soil pH, density, and mineral content.
After planting we re-map seeded areas with LiDAR to track successful growth rates and continually adjust our growth model for each species.
QuadKite
The Quadkite is our heavy-lift workhorse for seedball dispersion.
LiDAR Imaging
- Scan rate: 240,000 points per second.
- Up to 3 returns per point.
- 14 points per square foot.
- System accuracy: 5cm
- Position accuracy: 0.5cm (as used with PPK)
