Volocopter and John Deere Partner on VoloDrone

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

We usually think of farming as a back-to-the-earth, humble enterprise, eschewing urban sophistication for rural simplicity.  Volocopter, the height of such urbanity, and John Deere, its green and yellow tractors shearing suburban lawns and its giant combines harvesting wheat fields worldwide, are blurring those lines with the VoloDrone, an agricultural implement like no other. The largest John Deere combines weigh over 30,000 pounds (13,608 kilograms), while the most a Volocopter can carry is around 440 pounds (200 kilograms).   This disparity can seem heavily on the side of brutish strength, but agility and finesse also play a part in farming. Unveiled at the aptly named Future Technology Zone in Hall 13 at Agritechnica in Hanover, Germany, a demonstrator model of the VoloDrone equipped with a crop protection sprayer hung over the John Deere exhibit.  Those 200 kilos of potent spray can cover a large area.  With autonomous possibilities, the machine is not a threat to anything but the bugs or weeds …