Project number: 9.902.60001 (Maiden flight Lenzbauer Wine)

Project description/methods:

The 6 operational levels of the AIRlabs Austria phased model provide testing opportunities in real airspace – under neutral operating conditions – as well as specific or subject-related test environments. Agricultural applications and precision farming represent a large sector within the possible or upcoming UAS use cases, whereby the broad spectrum ranges from monitoring and documentation tasks to the physical treatment of plants and the spreading of seeds, etc.

Particularly in Styria, UAS are increasingly being used within the agricultural sector for viticulture. The Lenzbauer winery is planning to use UAS specifically for the application of microorganisms to combat fungi, to dry the vines after rainfall and to prevent frost by the downdraft created by the UAS and the associated mixing of cold and warm air layers. To realise these use cases, an operating environment was developed by FH JOANNEUM with regard to the fulfilment of legal framework conditions.

For this purpose, a risk analysis (SORA=Specific Operations Risk Assessment) compliant with the EASA UAS regulations was prepared, submitted to and approved by the competent authority, for which an orthophoto of sections of the vineyard was also prepared by Graz University of Technology for analysis purposes. In further steps, the winery is planning to implement the requested applications and integrate technologies from AIRlabs partners, which will open up possible applications for the innovation lab and its users in the agricultural sector.