Aerospace engineers from the United Kingdom are trying to find ways to remotely collect data in China using ground and aerial drones to boost "smart farming" and sustainable agriculture in China.

Engineers from Loughborough University in England are researching on how to attain this aim using unmanned autonomous ground and air vehicles. The project called "Enabling wide area persistent remote sensing for agriculture applications" is backed by $1.3 million in funding.

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It's being jointly financed by the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council under the Newton Fund, a facility that's part of the UK's official development assistance and that aims to develop science and innovation partnerships.

The British team is working with Prof. Wen-Hua Chen and his research team from the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering and an international consortium. The partners hope to gain a greater understanding of plant science, pest and disease by collecting large amounts of observation data to boost farming resilience and food security.

Prof. Chen and his colleagues, Dr. Cunjia Liu and Dr. Hyondong Oh, are researching how to improve ground and aerial drones so these can be more effectively used to fulfill the project's remote data collection needs. The goal is to ensure China is able to meet its population's fast growing demand for food.

The special drones are expected to relay timely and repetitive information about crops spanning a wide area, and enabling the technologies to be operated with less expertise.

"Precision agriculture" or "smart farming" can help increase the quality and quantity of agricultural production by using sensing technology to make farms more connected. Smart farming technologies can measure soil moisture and nutrition using airborne sensors on unmanned aircraft.

It can also automatically detect weeds with airborne cameras and coordinate with autonomous mechanical weeders for treatment. These technologies can be used to identify and destroy weeds that threaten crops and help to reduce pressure on China's already damaged environment.

"Agriculture is facing serious challenges around the world due to increasing and aging populations as well as a growing global demand for energy and fresh water," said Professor Chen.

"The likelihood of extreme weather events occurring more often also threatens food production, which is why remote data collection to evaluate soil and crop health has an important role to play in developing sustainable agriculture for rapidly developing countries like China."

TagsLoughborough University, china, United Kingdom, Science and Technology Facilities Council], smart farming