AGRIDRONE: Month 8 Project Update
Published: September 10, 2026
1. Executive Summary
As the AGRIDRONE project reaches Month 8 of its 10-month roadmap, we are proud to share our ongoing progress toward building an autonomous UAV-based data collection system for remote agricultural monitoring. By combining LoRa RF wake-up receivers, optimized flight paths, and GEO Satellite backhaul via the AGRARIAN Testbed 1, we are actively overcoming the connectivity limits of rural farmlands.
2. Key Milestones Achieved So Far
- Ground Sensor Network Complete: Our ultra-low-power BME280 sensor nodes are fully operational. They remain in deep sleep, only waking upon an RF signal from our UAVs, extending battery life significantly.
- Autonomous UAV Routes: Path optimization algorithms (TSP) guide the drone along the most battery-efficient routes, bypassing MAVLink broadcast complexities in favor of a direct REST HTTP trigger.
- Satellite Integration Underway: We are actively laying the groundwork for tunneling data over GEO satellite connections, compressing telemetry by 60-80% to handle limited bandwidth.
3. Edge Analytics (Currently in Progress)
Our team is currently equipping the Edge server with advanced analytics to monitor sensor integrity and identify critical field events, such as extreme drought. This ongoing work will translate raw field telemetry into actionable recommendations for farmers—helping optimize irrigation scheduling and resource usage.
4. The Road Ahead (Months 9-10)
Our upcoming final steps involve conducting physical field trials at the Greek pilot farm site in Month 10. We will deploy the sensor network over at least 5 hectares, executing autonomous drone missions to wake sensors, retrieve data, and transmit it via the satellite terminal to our edge server. We are targeting a latency of under 30 minutes from data collection in the field to visualization on the farmer's dashboard.
Thank you for following the AGRIDRONE journey!
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