In the last decade, agricultural research has become increasingly advanced, largely due to unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones. At South Dakota State University, drones were integrated into a variety of research activities, but were undoubtedly the most impactful in agricultural research.

Maitiniyazi Maimaitijiang, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, has been working closely with other faculty members to conduct drone-related agricultural research in recent years, specifically regarding early diagnosis of crop water stress, nutrient deficiency, health and crop disease: major threats to food security and crop yield estimates.

"We are trying to develop robust, fast, accurate and operational solutions and tools to detect and diagnose crop water stress, nutrient deficiency and crop health and diseases, especially early detection," Maimaitijiang said. "We are trying to develop some new algorithms using satellites, drones, artificial intelligence, different types of information, to detect this before symptoms become visible. Because once it becomes visible, the control may be too late."

Once the disease becomes visible at leaf level, even spraying can become useless, Maimaitijiang said. Previously, the traditional method of detecting disease on plantations was laborious and time-consuming, requiring hours and hours of tedious data collection on acres and acres of fields. Drone technology has created a more efficient and reliable method of detecting disease on plantations. While not yet a perfect science, deep learning has advanced in the field of digital image processing, which combined with drone technology has fueled agricultural research in recent years.