UK engineers to trial 5G-enabled drones for smart farming

The group, from Kingston University’s Robot Vision team (RoViT) is looking at how drones could harness this technology to carry out real time video monitoring and surveillance – potentially opening up new opportunities for increasing efficiency and productivity in the agricultural industry.

5G is set to become the industry standard for connectivity in the future. with potential speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second, opening up applications across a range of sectors.

Explaining the aims of the project Kingston’s Professor Paolo Remagnino, said: "We're looking at providing a new method for monitoring livestock, grazing land and crops that would give farmers an eye in the sky over their fields. It would involve using drones with on-board visual and infrared cameras, supported by a computer vision system allowing them to detect when an animal is sick, trapped, injured or missing and also to monitor, count and control crops and spot signs of disease or weeds."