GPS AND DRONES Milestones of precision agriculture are the global positioning system (GPS) and drones. 1 DO How is precision farming profitable? 1 The Global Positioning System is cost effective. It allows users to determine the exact location of an area on the Earth. Its features are: GPS real-time data collection is combined with accurate position information; it allows efficient manipulation and analysis of large amounts of geospatial data; it can be mounted on various farming machinery, from tractors and , up to advanced drones. crop dusters Farmers use such technology on their tractors because: it provides cost-effective alternatives to older methods of planting, raising and harvesting crops; farming machines equipped with GPS receivers are able to recognise their position within a farm field and adjust their operations to maximise productivity or efficiency; they can work during low visibility field conditions. Drones , or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are flying robots that can be remotely controlled or fly autonomously through software, working in conjunction with sensors and GPS. They can gather and process real-time data providing information which could make the difference between a failed crop and a large harvest. The ability of drones to fly low over crops with sensor devices allows farmers to constantly monitor crop and livestock conditions by air to quickly find problems that could not be detected in time by traditional ground-level checks. Drones 1 MORE Flying robots have been used for photography, security, safety, and environmental applications since the early 1980s, but the first unmanned vehicles date back to the mid-1800s, when (1849) the Austrian Navy used two hundred incendiary balloons to capture Venice. 1 Main applications of drones These are some of their main applications: they produce precise 3-D maps for early soil analysis, useful in planning seed planting ; soil and field analysis: patterns they accurately map the terrain to survey any variation in topography; terrain mapping: they shoot with seeds and plant nutrients into the soil; planting: pods they spray the correct amount of liquid onto the ground much faster and more accurately than with traditional machinery; crop spraying: they keep track of the livestock and identify any injured or missing animal; livestock monitoring: they can show the precise development of a crop and reveal production inefficiencies enabling better crop management; crop monitoring: they identify which parts of a field are dry or need improvements; irrigation: by scanning a crop through visible or near-infrared light, they can identify changes in plants, which is essential to assess crop health and bacterial or fungal infections. health : assessment spot