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Spinoff story
Field-Scanning Drone Gives Farmers Better Data
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
Flight enables access and perspective impossible from the ground. A field-scanning drone—designed by Los Angeles-based AeroVironment using expertise in autonomous flight engineering gained on NASA’s high-altitude, solar-powered, unmanned airplanes—now makes that perspective more accessible for farmers. Sold as Quantix, the drone is giving farmers better data about their sprawling fields, helping increase yield or farm more efficiently. The company also used the same expertise to help the Jet Propulsion Laboratory build a helicopter for Mars, set to become the first vehicle ever to fly there.