{"id":6168,"date":"2023-01-31T15:36:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T15:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/?p=6168"},"modified":"2023-06-24T05:36:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T05:36:52","slug":"hawaiis-mamba-drone-is-saving-rare-endangered-plant-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/hawaiis-mamba-drone-is-saving-rare-endangered-plant-species\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii&#8217;s MAMBA Drone Is Saving Rare Endangered Plant Species"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ru3s00Ck_3o\" width=\"740\" height=\"415\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><br \/>\nCrop management continues to occupy center stage in the <a href=\"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/vermont\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">burgeoning drone industry<\/a>.\u00a0 But as technology advances, agricultural missions are evolving far beyond basic aerial surveying and boundary management.\u00a0 Some drones are equipped to seed and spray farms with fertilizers and pesticides \u2013 without the need for remote piloting, and in precise amounts based on soil fertility, crop stress, and other unique farm conditions.\u00a0 And now, thanks to further innovations, some drones are being equipped with sophisticated cutting and grabbing tools to assist with the harvest.<\/p>\n<p>Operating in tandem with self-powered wheelbarrow bins, robotic drone technology is nearing the point where the entire farm management process \u2013 including packaging and delivery\u2013 could be fully automated.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, most of the new harvesting drones are picking fruit crops \u2013 apples, oranges and strawberries, for example \u2013 though in one known case, the target crop is asparagus.\u00a0 But in Hawaii, a pioneering Canadian start-up, Outreach Robotics, has invented a cutting drone for yet another purpose:\u00a0 to collect samples of several rare and endangered plant species that grow in rocky and inaccessible mountainous areas that no human, let alone another air vehicle, can possibly reach.<\/p>\n<p>Outreach Robotics\u2019 next-generation sample collection drone has one horizontal metal rod that lifts up the plant\u2019s lower branches for inspection, while a specialized cutting device, dubbed the MAMBA, clips one of those branches free.\u00a0 The system is so sophisticated it first allows for a precise measurement of the branch, then calibrates the cutting motion to exert just the right pressure to clip it.\u00a0 Thanks to MAMBA, these fast-disappearing plant species are finally being studied \u2013 and might well survive.<\/p>\n<p>Outreach Robotics came to the Hawaii project through the Kauai-based National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), which tried for years to collect rare plant species in Hawaii using more traditional methods.\u00a0 Helicopters would drop trained rock climbers \u2013 usually botanists with boots and ropes \u2013 onto high cliffs, and the climbers would proceed to rappel down the sheer rock faces in search of rare plants.\u00a0 It was dangerous, time-consuming and ultimately ineffective; the climbers had no real idea what they were looking for and whether it existed in the areas they were searching.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016 the NTBG struck upon the idea of using drones to find and map rare plant species, but had no way of collecting samples for analysis \u2013 until the organization came in contact with Outreach Robotics, which was experimenting with cutting tools for drones.\u00a0 The alliance of the two groups led to further technology development \u2013 a patented pendulum-swinging cutting tool \u2013 and <em>voila,<\/em> the MAMBA (Multi-Use Aerial Manipulator Bidirectionally Actuated) drone was born.<\/p>\n<p>NTBG has spent the past year transferring the collected plant species samples to nurseries, and is watching them grow.\u00a0 At the same time, botanists are studying wtaever fungi might be associated with the different species and investigating measures to combat them.\u00a0 Having mapped the different areas of plant collection \u2013 again using drones and GPS \u2013 NTBG\u00a0 and Outreach Robotics will soon be back in the field \u2013 this time to replant their carefully nurtured seedlings, and then spray them.\u00a0 Can a drone perform this advanced crop management mission, too?\u00a0 Only time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff Crop management continues to occupy center stage in the burgeoning drone industry.\u00a0 But as technology advances, agricultural missions are evolving far beyond basic aerial surveying and boundary management.\u00a0 Some drones are equipped to seed and spray farms with fertilizers and pesticides \u2013 without the need for remote piloting, and in precise amounts based on&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/hawaiis-mamba-drone-is-saving-rare-endangered-plant-species\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}