UAVs Taking Flight in Ag

Among Uses is Potential to Boost Efficiency for Crop Insurance Claims

Chris Clayton
By  Chris Clayton , DTN Ag Policy Editor
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The FAA this month began accelerating its exemption approvals for companies testing the skies with drone technology. (DTN/The Progressive Farmer file photo by Jim Patrico)

WASHINGTON (DTN) -- Agricultural industries are gearing up to take flight with unmanned aerial systems as the Federal Aviation Administration has begun to more rapidly approve requests to fly small drones for a broad array of uses.

The FAA this month began accelerating its exemption approvals for companies testing the skies with drone technology. Most industry people refer to the small flying objects as UAVs -- unmanned aerial vehicles. The FAA calls them UASs -- unmanned aerial systems.

As of Thursday, FAA had granted 207 exemptions to companies to fly UAS operations, of which 138 have been approved just since an expedited process began in April, the FAA stated. Real estate developers, miners, pipeline companies, railroads, hazmat teams, videography companies, utility companies and survey companies are among the main applicants. However, some recognizable agricultural companies such as ADM Crop Risk Services and Climate Corp. have also been approved this month.

About one in every six or seven business approvals cites agricultural survey practices as the company's main purpose for wanting to use drones, according to the FAA permits.

ADM's approval was specifically for its crop-insurance division. In its application to the FAA, the company noted that UASs/UAVs would allow ADM Crop Risk Services "to map crop acres more efficiently and assess crop damage faster and safer than ever before."

Greg Mills, president of ADM Crop Risk Services, said in an interview with DTN that UASs/UAVs could dramatically change the way the crop-insurance industry operates in coming years. For 2015, however, Mills said the company will largely be testing flight machines, software and the kind of terrain that would be optimal for using the equipment.

"We have several hypotheses on the UAV platform, and the software attached to it will make it so we can deliver a claims check faster to a farmer," Mills said. "So this year is a year of experimentation."

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If all goes well, then ADM Crop Risk Services will launch its UAV systems regionally in 2016. Given privacy concerns some producers have about big data and drone technology, Mills stressed that customers will have to agree to let ADM fly the systems over their fields.

While ADM and other companies are among the first to test UAV/UAS systems, Mills said he believes more companies involved in crop insurance will also take a look at how those systems can be used. Mills said insurers are under margin pressure because of changes in the crop insurance program and structural changes in agriculture that will force crop insurers to investigate new technologies to deliver services. UAVs are just one of the potential tools there.

"This is what I see as an efficiency and cost-saving move," Mills said. "I think the industry will eventually have to come to grips with how they can deploy new technologies. There are a lot of other new technologies rumbling around as well. While I have not seen any of the other crop-insurance companies actively discussing this, we have been expressing this with meetings with customers and meetings with employees that we were going down this path for maybe a year, because the functionality of what the UAV platform provides seems to be fairly obvious."

Understanding the potential accuracy and limitations on UAVs requires ADM Crop Risk to take the time this year experimenting with the machines, Mills said.

"We want to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, so if we can figure out a way to be more efficient, we're saving everybody," he said.

Depending on how the regulatory issues unwind with the FAA, Mills said there will be a cost savings for insurance companies that will compel them to use flying scanner equipment. It could be possible over the next few years for a single insurance adjuster to examine two to three times the number of fields in a given day. Mills used the example of a 640-acre section with five claims in it now would force an adjuster to drive to five fields. "Potentially, down the road we see where the UAV could do three or four of those claims while he's in the field. Or he could do three or four of those claims with the UAV and load the data into the system and basically have the claims auto-calculated for an audit trail to make sure they are accurate."

The FAA rules are somewhat of a moving target at this point, but Mills noted other countries thus far are more advanced in their use of drone technology. Japan, in particular, has similar aviation rules to the U.S., but has been a leader in using UAVs for sectors such as agriculture. As far as the U.S. rules are concerned, Mills noted it's important to jump in at the ground level.

"I know if you aren't participating, you won't learn enough and will be behind the trend if you aren't participating in it," he said.

ADM noted the company also is developing proprietary software that enables the vehicles to automatically download measurements and information as images are taken, allowing data analysis and claims processing to begin almost immediately.

The FAA is working on a rule that would spell out exactly under what conditions a business can fly a UAS/UAV. A final rule could come quickly because the comment period on the proposed rule ends Friday.

Under the proposed rule and in the exemptions approved for businesses, the FAA states any UAS/UAV must be limited to 55 pounds or less, remain below 500 feet in the air, can only be flown during daylight hours and must remain within visual sight of the operator.

FAA noted in its proposed rule that crop monitoring and inspections were ranked as one of the biggest potential commercial uses.

While the FAA has granted 207 commercial approvals, the agency shows there are nearly 1,100 pending requests from businesses seeking the same permission to fly UAS/UAVs.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN

(AG/CZ)

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Chris Clayton