Autonomous Drones Could Soon Be Scouting Your Cornfields

By: Amy Bickel

Just behind the old barn on a Hesston, Kansas, farmstead sits a little white shed of the future.

It houses the latest in agriculture technology—drones.

Soon, the Midwestern landscape could be dotted with hundreds of these sheds, or drone base stations, ushering farmers into a time only previously envisioned in a Star Wars movie.

The concept? Farmers can call out the drones to scout their crops without having to set foot in the field.

That idea isn’t light years away, however, said Vijay Somandepalli, co-founder and chief technology operator for American Robotics, a company that hopes to have such a drone on the market by next year.

In recent weeks, Somandepalli and his crew, in cooperation with Mid-Kansas Cooperative, Moundridge, has been testing the autonomous drone technology, a system that not only flies by itself but also maintains itself and recharges in the shed, or base station, between flights.

Federal Aviation Administration rules still limit its use, and Somandepalli and his engineers still must be in the field when the drone is in the air, maintaining its line of sight.