- English
The global market for growth monitoring and forecasting of harvests in horticulture is estimated at 45 billion euros. This concerns the costs of scouting crops, but especially the costs of damage to crops or an incorrect harvest forecast. These are reasons that growers need good systems to monitor their crops, making every change in their crop visible.
Corvus Drones was founded in 2019 and has won many international innovation awards, including the Greentech Amsterdam Innovation Award or the TU Delft International Micro Air Vehicle. The first application was monitoring seed germination at breeders and young plant growers. The number of applications has since expanded considerably and examples include growth, flowering, inventory management or irrigation inspection. The Corvus Drones team consists of 10 people and the drones fly in more than 15 countries worldwide.
At the Greentech Amsterdam the E13 drone version is introduced. This drone has a lower weight of only 300 grams and the flight time is 50% longer. This means that the drone scans a large area in a shorter time and that the application is cheaper. The drone takes off from the charging station and after landing the plant dataset is automatically sent to the Corvus Cloud. Near real time (within 30-60 minutes) the user automatically receives the report with crop information by email or in the online dashboard.
The development of applications takes place in collaboration with growers, suppliers or computer vision partners. A good example are the applications for lettuce (hydroponic), which is used by many growers in various countries. A supplier approached Corvus Drones with the request to detect the so-called ‘misaligned gutters’. In addition to this application, the drone monitors the growth of seeds to sale.
In potted plant cultivation, detection of Fusarium and thrips has been developed through collaboration with leading orchid producers. The next step is monitoring growth, finding crop abnormalities or providing insight into the stage of maturity. That provides insight into the saleable stock of plants in the greenhouse. Incidentally, this is an application for which there is broad interest within the sector.
Corvus Drones focuses on drone data collection in greenhouse horticulture. The drone images are analyzed by various computer vision partners. The reporting to growers is done via the Corvus Cloud in order to deliver the end-to-end solution to growers. Track32, Agri Data Innovations (ADI), Pheno-Inspect and Grower Adviser are renowned partners of Corvus Drones.
Corvus Drones will be exhibiting at Greentech Amsterdam and will be providing live drone demonstrations at stand 05.523.
