Marauding birds can be a curse at wine vintage time, but a new counter measure in the form of a high-tech drone is being trialled in Hunter, Hilltops and Orange vineyards.
Led by Sydney University School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering PhD candidate Zi Wang, the trial uses an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that mimics bird behaviour.
Further trials of the multi-rotor hexacopter drone are due during this week’s 2019 Orange vintage.
Zi told me last week that to get birds to see the drone as a predator the team had fixed a dummy crow, with wings open on the UAV undercarriage.
In other trials mirrors were attached.
The crow dummy was intended to create the impression that the UAV had just caught a crow and other birds were in danger
For the full story from John Lewis in Australia’s The Herald, click here.
