CU teams with Black Swift on farmland moisture-test project

YUMA — Engineers, scientists and students from the University of Colorado will team up with Boulder-based Black Swift Technologies to use drones to measure water moisture at a test irrigation farm in Yuma.

The testing will take place at the Irrigation Research Foundation (IRF), a research and demonstration farm in northeast Colorado.

The team will fly high-tech sensors mounted on a fixed-wing SuperSwift drone developed by Black Swift Technologies.

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The sensors will be able to assess moisture in crop fields at a resolution of about 50 feet across and to a depth of about 8 inches. The sensors were were developed by a team led by CU Boulder professor Al Gaseiwski of electrical, computer and energy engineering.

The effort is part of Project Drought, a CU Boulder initiative to use drones to improve the understanding and prediction of drought, flooding and agricultural vulnerabilities.

Project Drought is one of five research efforts initiated under CU Boulder’s Integrated Remote and In Situ Sensing project, directed by professor Brian Argrow of the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

Black Swift Technologies was spun out of CU Boulder by aerospace doctoral graduates Jack Elston, Maciej Stachura and Cory Dixon in 2011 with the help of a NASA Small Business Innovative Research Grant.