More ways dairy farms are going high-tech. That’s the topic of today’s This Land of Ours.
Image courtesy of Taylor Ruthford/UCR
For years, the dairy industry has worked on ground-breaking ways to manage methane, which is inevitable anywhere cows are found. Methane is a result when cow manure breaks down, and it’s also a gas released from the cows’ digestive tract. Basically, cow burps, and there’s no controlling that. But measuring it accurately can lead to better management of the gas, and that helps our climate.
A team of three researchers at UC Riverside in California are working to develop aerial robotic systems – or drones – that can quantify methane emissions directly over a specific dairy facility. Postdoctoral fellow Javier Gonzalez-Rocha has developed a new method for extracting wind velocity estimates from disturbances to drone motion caused by wind. Ultimately, the goal is to use this technology for more accurate measurements of methane using drones. Another team is working on that end of the technology. It’s expected the technology can be put to use as soon as five years from now.
From UC Riverside:
UC Riverside is working with mechanical engineering professor Akula Venkatram and environmental sciences professor Francesca Hopkins to develop aerial robotic systems that can quantify methane emissions directly over a specific dairy facility.
To achieve this goal, Gonzalez-Rocha has developed a new method for extracting wind velocity estimates from disturbances to drone motion caused by wind. This algorithm has been adapted to a drone-based “air core” system developed by environmental engineering professor Don Collins and graduate student Zihan Zhu.
An air core is similar to an ice core, a plug of ice pulled from a glacier that can reveal changes in atmospheric composition over time. By combining wind velocity and air core measurement capabilities, drones can help detect, localize, and estimate methane emissions at fine spatial scales otherwise difficult to resolve using standard wind and air composition measurement techniques. The ability of drones to hover and maneuver in constrained environments, where it is difficult for conventional fixed-wing aircraft to operate, also provides new possibilities for obtaining targeted observations of greenhouse gasses in the lower atmosphere.
The work being led by Gonzalez-Rocha and Zhu will soon yield new findings addressing the reliability of drone-based atmospheric measurements in comparison to conventional wind and air composition sensors.
Read the full story from UC Riverside by clicking here.
Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.