Dr. João Valente and Dr. Lammert Kooistra of Wageningen University & Research, and their team of the Information Technology Group and the Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing group, developed a new FREE open online course: Drones for Agriculture: Prepare and Design Your Drone (UAV) Mission.
Small Drones/UAVs are employed in agriculture for crop observation, crop monitoring, field analysis and map generation through aerial surveys. And with the available software and 'mission planning tools' market growing, so is the demand for knowledge and understanding about their usage and limitations. João, Lammert and their team developed a MOOC which will give you the insights whether it makes sense to use a drone for your application or challenge. You will learn how to plan an end-to-end mission (from image acquisition to data visualization) for your specific drone application and how to execute a drone mission safely. After finishing this online course you will have gained full understanding of the aerial mapping workflow and how to implement it in a programmable small drone. You will know which steps you need to take to gain the valuable insights you are looking for.
For whom?
Although the course was initially made for agriculture technicians, researchers or graduate students from multidisciplinary technical fields, everyone that aims to learn how to use an off-the-shelf small drone for generating a high-resolution image from a field, or has a general high interest in drones, is very welcome.
What you'll learn
- Learn to decide whether it makes sense to use a drone for your application or challenge
- Design a process from acquisition to data visualization and evaluation for your specific drone application
- Learn about the available airborne technology and software
- Understand what UAV international legislation and regulations are concerning drones
- How to make an aerial surveying workflow
- How to make the required flight preparations and create and execute a safe mission setup
- You will learn about mission planning and the available open source and commercial tools
- You will gain understanding about aerial imaging product delivery