Last August, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research unveiled a new grant-funded drone called the “AgBot,” designed to put an eye in the sky over fields to help local farmers get more data on their farms.
The AgBot is a quadcopter drone with a full-spectrum camera powerful enough to tell if there’s disease on a single leaf on a plant and a thermal camera powerful enough to tell if someone in a room full of people is running a fever, said Dr. Scott Lowman, a senior scientist at the Institute.
Since its debut, the AgBot has flown over hundreds of acres, snapping pictures and collecting information on the plants in the fields belonging to dozens of different farmers.
