Mar 2 2016
Based on its recent analysis of the precision agriculture (PA) market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Agribotix LLC with the 2016 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Enabling Technology Leadership. Agribotix's Enduro™ and Hornet™ agricultural drones, along with its FarmLens™ data analytics platform, have emerged the ideal PA solution set. Using these innovations, farmers can increase crop yield and improve quality, and make farming more efficient and profitable.
Agribotix focuses on the innovative use of drones in agriculture by delivering an easy-to-use, end-to-end solution to customers that have little or no experience in operating a drone. The Enduro quad-copter drone has impressive battery life and can cover up to 160 acres in a single, 22-minute flight. Most fields in North America are less than 160 acres in area, which makes the Enduro the ideal choice for farmers. Additionally, it is capable of vertical take-off and landing, giving it an advantage over fixed-wing drones in the smaller application segments. For larger fields, Agribotix offers the Hornet, a fixed-wing drone.
Agribotix employs commercial off-the-shelf cameras that are customized to collect color and near infrared (NIR) data. It also integrates other types of image sensors that can generate additional information about different crops.
Meanwhile, FarmLens™ is a software service that analyzes the imagery and data from the drones to provide intuitive, actionable intelligence to farmers. It is compatible with a variety of other drones and provides data that can be imported into other precision farm equipment, making it an extremely flexible and easy-to-deploy solution.
"Leveraging drones and the FarmLens™ platform, farmers can calculate germination rates and weed locations to better understand yields and their field's performance," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sumit Kumar Pal. "Agribotix's initiatives to implement various technologies in imaging, drones and data analytics clearly set it apart in the North American PA market."
In addition to North America, Agribotix has key customers in Australia, Latin America and India. Although agriculture is a major source of livelihood in these regions, there is a supply-demand gap in PA-enabling technologies, which makes them significant markets for Agribotix's advanced sensing technologies and data analytics technologies.
"Agribotix has received the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 333 exemption for its drones, which is a key requirement for using drones for commercial purposes in the United States," noted Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Jabez Mendelson. "This makes it easy for Agribotix's customers to apply for their own permits for the use of agricultural drones."
Significantly, Agribotix's PA solutions can be applied in various aspects of farming, such as variable rate application, monitoring of irrigation systems, calculating stand density, and generation of normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI). For demonstrating the long-term viability and impact of its technology by the number of applications that it can support, Frost & Sullivan is pleased to present Agribotix with the 2016 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Enabling Technology Leadership.
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to a company that has developed a pioneering technology that not only enhances current products, but also stokes the development of newer products and applications. The award recognizes the high market acceptance potential of the recipient's technology.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.