21 Feb EAvision J150 Productivity Study
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There has been a lot of talk about drones and their capability to handle broadacre work. We have been doing a bit of work in this area. We wanted to make this study a look at how the drone and the supporting systems handle real-life situations. For us that means operating in conditions that are challenging for performance. That means hot, high elevation and humid. So the drone and the batteries are working hard.
Our next aim was to make the operation as simple as possible to manage. As experienced operators we know how hard it can be in these hot conditions. Do you really want the added complexity of trying to continually match the load with what the battery can handle?
Why not just have a drone where you can just fill tank and send it, knowing that the battery can handle it.
So that is what we did for this study (and what we always do)
Equipment
- J150 drone
- 3 x 45,000 maAh Batteries
- 1 x 13,000watt charger
- 24kVa diesel generator
- 1000lt IBC and 800lt mixing tank
The Task
- 100-hectare Field
- North Queensland
- Summer (Feb 2026)
- 900 feet elevation
The Settings
- 12m swath
- 4m operating height
- 13m/s (46klm/hr) flight speed
- terrain following – on
- 20lt/ha
The conditions were challenging. Typical Nrth QLD day, hot, humid and constantly assessing the chance of rain.
First Flight 0705 am
Last Flight 1149 am
Total – 4hrs 45min
32 flights
average 3.125 hectares per flight
2207 litres
68 litres per flight (average)
Currently, this operator can carry 1000 litres of water in an IBC plus a bit in the mixing tank. Therefore, halfway through the day, the operator needed to travel to a water supply for a refill. We estimate that this process added about 30 minutes to the day.
Battery Performance
The performance of the batteries is a crucial component of overall productivity. The performance determines how long the flights can stay airborne, how fast the batteries can charge, among others.
They are very expensive and two very important considerations.
- You do not want to have buy extras and also potentially additional chargers (and generators).
- You do not want to continually operate these batteries at high temperature and shorten their life span.
As part of this study, we did an analysis of the individual flights and compared flight time with battery cell temperatures as well as the State of Charge throughout the flight. We focused on the flights towards the end of the day as well, and have been advised that with some drone batteries, they tend to have a heat build-up through the day and on occasion need a cool-down period before they can start the charge process.
For this field, we were able to maximise efficiency by starting and finishing each flight close to the edge of the field. On the majority of flights we able to start with >95% battery and have the drone return (empty tank), with about 45% left in the battery. Starting temperature of 40 °C and max throughout the flight of just over 50 °C
Sometimes in practice the flights cannot meet all of the efficiency aims. Towards the end of the day, as the field started to taper off around the edges, the runs became shorter, and on a few occasions, a transit of over 300m was required. The lowest State of Charge for the returning flight was around 20%. For these flights, the battery start temp was 48 °C and max of 60 °C.
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