A news release this week from Purdue University indicated that, “Aerial Agriculture LLC, a startup company launched by Purdue University students, aims to revolutionize the agricultural industry by building drones in-house to capture multispectral images of entire crop fields. This technology could allow farmers to reduce excess fertilizer and input costs while simultaneously increasing yields.
“Aerial Agriculture uses specialized cameras to convert images into valuable vegetation indices that represent crop health and allow agronomists to determine the amount of nitrogen and fertilizer that needs to be applied in specific locations throughout the field.
“‘Our technology can pinpoint crop areas that need more attention, which allows farmers to then apply more inputs and address potential crop issues immediately, as opposed to after the fact,’ said Austin Deardorff, Aerial Agriculture co-founder and a student in Purdue’s College of Engineering. ‘We expect our clients to get a full return on their investment, if not make money from using our service.'”
The news release added that, “Aerial Agriculture has received funding through various sources at the Purdue Foundry, an entrepreneurship and commercialization accelerator located in the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in Purdue’s Discovery Park. The team took first place and $5,000 at Purdue’s Boiler Mini-Accelerator Competition earlier this year.
“The company recently received $20,000 in the latest round of funding from Elevate Purdue Foundry Fund First-Tier Black Awards.”
