Aug 19 2014
Since 2010, the company Quetzal Aerospace, based in the city of Queretaro, in the middle of Mexico, began manufacturing drones. A little more than four years after its birth, the company has expressed its intention to use these platforms to optimize aeronautical techniques for farmers, in order to promote "precision agriculture" in the country.
The engineer Jorge Alberto Ortega Sánchez, director of the company, explained that with the support of specialists from the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE) it was detected that drones form Quetzal Aerospace could be implemented for technological tasks applied to agriculture.
"Scientists at CICESE proposed a use for our platform, until then unknown to us, called precision agriculture," explained Ortega Sánchez. He added that such term refers to the monitoring of the crop cycle from sowing seed to harvest; and that it is an alternative for using technology (other than genomics) in this strategic sector. "
Several scholars have pointed out that one of the biggest benefits of precision agriculture is that by using special cameras or satellite images, large areas can be appreciated and monitored at a glance. This is because healthy crops emit a peculiar type of radiation, which changes when it is ridden or ill because its physical properties are altered.
"However, there are times when satellite images may not provide optimal results, they make it possible to monitor a large area, but in some cases a specific and small area is required. That's why we innovate precision farming using drones equipped with special cameras," said the director of the Mexican enterprise.
According to Ortega Sánchez, Quetzal Aerospace aims to be consolidated as a drone company which offers specific services. With this, he said, farmers will have access to these technologies without the need to purchase a drone or specific knowledge to operate it, at an affordable cost.
Aviation specialist, who achieved his engineering degree at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), said that the company currently focuses its efforts on the development of cameras designed specifically for agricultural work, as well as other areas such as civil engineering, archeology, and even civil protection.
Currently, the company has managed to obtain three patents and other intellectual property protection (utility models, industrial design). So far the firm has developed three types of drones.
Jorge Alberto Sánchez Ortega highlighted that the consolidation of the company Quetzal Aerospace, and the development of Mexican drones for civil work has been possible thanks to the support of academic institutions such as the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), CICESE, Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM), Queretaro Aeronautical University and various private institutions.
In the long term, the company is involved in the development of manned aircraft, which seeks to strengthen the promising Mexican aerospace industry.