Drones & Aerial Survey
Drones: For Farmers
What Drones changes for the person actually doing the work.
For the person running the business, the test of any farm software is whether it removes work or adds it. Drones deliver genuine value in mapping, crop scouting, livestock checking and infrastructure inspection, and are legally constrained for pesticide application in a way the marketing rarely makes clear. This module manages operational authorisation, flight planning and logging, imagery processing, and states the aerial application position plainly so investment decisions are not made on a false premise.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
Farm manager
Own drone operation
Needs to know what is actually legal before buying a spray drone.
- Confirm pilot competence and authorisation
- Plan the flight and check airspace
- Complete the pre-flight risk assessment
- Fly and log
Drone service provider
Contract survey
Needs authorisation, logs and insurance evidence in one place.
- Plan the flight and check airspace
- Complete the pre-flight risk assessment
- Fly and log
- Process imagery into the field record
Agronomist
Crop scouting
Needs imagery georeferenced into the field record.
- Complete the pre-flight risk assessment
- Fly and log
- Process imagery into the field record
- Act on findings within the crop record
End to end
How Drones runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Confirm pilot competence and authorisation
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Plan the flight and check airspace
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Complete the pre-flight risk assessment
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Fly and log
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Process imagery into the field record
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Act on findings within the crop record
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Retain evidence for insurance and audit
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Review currency and renew authorisations
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Drones does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Operator competence, remote pilot certification and currency tracking
- Operational authorisation management for Specific category flights
- Flight planning with airspace, restriction and permission checking
Operate and monitor
- Flight logging with duration, area, pilot and aircraft
- Aerial imagery capture planning for crop scouting and mapping
- Orthomosaic and elevation model processing and storage
Comply and evidence
- Crop scouting workflows with georeferenced findings
- Livestock checking and welfare inspection flights
- Infrastructure and building inspection records
Analyse and improve
- Aerial application legal position checker by product and purpose
- Permitted aerial operations register — seeding, spreading and approved products
- Insurance, risk assessment and pre-flight checklist records
Find
Find contractors and dealers
Filter by type, nation, distance and accreditation. Results are ranked by relevance to your holding once your holding record exists, and alphabetically before that.
6 records shown from the platform’s own register
- Module Machinery, Fleet & Contracting Flagship
- Module Precision Agriculture, Guidance & Variable Rate Core
- Module Robotics & Field Automation Core
- Module Drones & Aerial Survey Core
- Module Satellite & Remote Sensing Core
- Module IoT Sensors & Rural Connectivity Core
Worked example
How a business like yours would use Drones
The problem: Needs to know what is actually legal before buying a spray drone.
What they do
- Confirm pilot competence and authorisation
- Plan the flight and check airspace
- Complete the pre-flight risk assessment
- Fly and log
What changes
- Hectares surveyed
- Flights logged with complete records
- Findings actioned
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Hectares surveyed
- 02Flights logged with complete records
- 03Findings actioned
- 04Cost per hectare surveyed
- 05Authorisation compliance
Free download
What UK Drones Can and Cannot Legally Do on a Farm
A practical handbook, written for UK farm businesses, with the sources cited and the working shown. No sales call attached — the guide is the point.