¶ UAV
| Company | Sprayon |
| Country | Australia |
| Website | https://sprayon.com.au/ |
| Category | Planning & Inventory › Remote sensing & mapping |
Contractor and retailer of UAVs for spraying, mapping, seeding, spreading
¶ Overview
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are aircraft that operate without an onboard human pilot, controlled either remotely by a ground operator or autonomously via onboard flight computers executing pre-programmed missions. In forestry, UAVs have emerged as a transformative technology across a wide range of applications, from stand-level inventory and health monitoring to seedling delivery and post-harvest compliance mapping. Fixed-wing UAVs — such as the senseFly eBee or Trimble UX5 — offer longer flight endurance and are suited to large-area mapping missions, while multi-rotor platforms (quadcopters and hexacopters) provide hover capability and precise positioning for inspection and precision application tasks. In Australian forestry, UAVs are used extensively for photogrammetric mapping to generate digital terrain models and canopy height maps, for identifying weed and pest infestations in plantation blocks, for post-fire recovery assessment, and for monitoring of erosion and waterway buffers in logged coupes. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates commercial UAV operations in Australia under Part 101 and Part 102 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, and operators working in forestry environments must navigate airspace requirements, especially in proximity to controlled airspace near regional airports or in areas with restricted operations due to fire risk. Key UAV manufacturers with significant adoption in Australian forestry include DJI (Matrice and Agras series), WingtraOne, Parrot, and AgEagle. The continued miniaturisation of sensor payloads — including multispectral cameras, thermal imagers, and LiDAR scanners — combined with advances in battery technology and autonomous flight software, is steadily expanding the role of UAVs in Australian forestry operations, making them an increasingly indispensable tool for both plantation and native forest management.
¶ Details
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Company | Sprayon |
| Country | Australia |
| Type | Company |
| FWPA RD&E | 8.4 |