In 2022, we were awarded a 10k grant from Ben Franklin Technology Partners (Central and Northern Pennsylvania) to conduct tests on our UAS prototype. Swift Aeroseed conducted 1 farm trial on 20 acres in Adams County and did at least 15 test flights of the drone at farms in Adams and Franklin County. Test flights included working through mechanical and technical issues, testing the software ArduPilot Mission Planner, and battery management.
Because we were working with a new broadcast distribution system, we needed to solve problems like weight distribution, seed broadcast torque, communication with software in the field, and consistent flight altitude.
Our airplane engineer, Jay Shettel, solved many of these problems. However, after seeding 80 acres in 2023 with our prototype it was clear we needed something more efficient and more than one. The only sufficient model on the market was and still is a Leading Edge Aerial Technology PV40X. They have the only model on the US market designed to release granular materials at large distances and a compatible software system that makes creating missions easy and fast.
In Fall 2024, we seeded more than 1,500 acres with two new PV40X drones and believe moving forward with better knowledge, more experience, and efficient setup/down methods we will easily double that acreage.
