Trimble and Volatus Aerospace Partner on AI-Guided Beyond Visual Line of Sight Systems for Precision Agriculture
TORONTO, Canada and WESTMINSTER, Colorado — Trimble and Volatus Aerospace have entered into a formal technology partnership to advance long-range autonomous drone applications within the agricultural sector. The partnership focuses on pairing Trimble’s high-precision positioning intelligence and automated flight navigation software with Volatus’s advanced aerospace hardware platforms, delivering safe, AI-guided drones capable of executing Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) missions.
Aerial crop monitoring via drone photography has become an essential precision farming practice, providing agronomists with high-resolution imagery to assess crop health, track weed emergence, and map water retention. However, traditional drone flights are legally and technologically restricted by Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) regulations, requiring operators to keep the drone in view. This limitation makes it highly labor-intensive to scan large, contiguous acreages.
Scaling Remote Crop Sensing over Vast Landscapes
Paired with Trimble’s high-precision RTK positioning and automated guidance systems, Volatus's long-range drones can execute regional BVLOS scanning safely and efficiently:
- Safe BVLOS Navigation: The system features on-board obstacle avoidance systems running deep learning algorithms, allowing drones to automatically detect and navigate around low-elevation obstacles like power lines, high trees, and local structures without operator intervention.
- Regional Crop Monitoring: Safe BVLOS capabilities allow operators to launch automated flights that survey regional crop development, mapping multi-spectral crop health and early pest outbreaks over thousands of contiguous acres in a single flight.
- Automated Data Integration: The imagery collected during the long-range flight is automatically integrated into Trimble’s farm management software, converting raw data into targeted prescription maps for chemical spraying or variable-rate nitrogen applications.
A New Era of Long-Range Precision Agriculture
Trimble and Volatus Aerospace's BVLOS integration represents a major advancement in remote agricultural sensing. By scaling flight operations over thousands of acres without constant field-edge intervention, the technology helps agribusinesses and large farm operations save substantial labor, track field health in detail, and optimize resources with ultimate precision.