Spray drone service provider, Mississippi State announce partnership to advance AI and autonomy

Date:02-13-2025

Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems, a Seneca, Kans., ag service provider focused on autonomous aerial and ground robotics, is forming a strategic partnership with the Agricultural Autonomy Institute (AAI) at Mississippi State University (MSU).

(Photo courtesy Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems)

The collaboration aims to advance R&D in farm machine automation by leveraging cutting-edge unmanned systems to enhance efficiency and sustainability.

The partnership will focus on integrating advanced unmanned aerial and ground vehicle technologies with AI-driven precision farming solutions. Researchers and engineers from both organizations will work together in research teams to test and refine autonomous systems and applications of AI for crop monitoring, soil analysis and farm management applications.

″The artificial intelligence (AI) we’re working on is different from Generative AI; this is AI that lives on a machine and as that machine is going through the field it is able to make decisions,″ says Lukas Koch, CEO, Kelly Hills. ″That is one of several items that Kelly Hills and AAI are excited to team up on. We’re giving them access to our technology and in return we’re able to collaborate with a great university that already has a keen focus on autonomy.″

Kelly Hills is the first U.S. aerial application service to operate the Pyka Pelican spray drone, which up until recently was the largest fixed wing spray drone in the world. Pyka has just dropped the Pelican 2, and it can now lay claim to the largest spray drone title with a 300 liter spray tank and the ability to cover 222 acres per hour.

Madison Dixon is the Associate Director at AAI. He is also a drone consultant and farms near Drew, Miss. His team is working on applied research to accelerate the development of autonomous machines.

″Ultimately detect, decide, and act are the machine functions we’re trying to develop and enhance so the solutions we develop can operate autonomously,″ Dixon says. ″That ‘decide’ piece, the second piece in the autonomy loop, right now there is so much happening around that capability with AI and machine learning. That’s an area we’re heavily focused on at the institute.″

Koch and Dixon agree the ultimate goal of the partnership, beyond advancing research, is to one day bring new, innovative machines with advanced autonomy to market.

″The Kelly Hills team has its UAS Test Range in Kansas, so they’re heavily focused on commercialization of drone technologies. And while AAI is slightly less focused on commercialization, the university and our researchers do generate new intellectual property that is frequently patented and commercialized,″ Dixon says. ″Both Lucas and I have a shared interest in commercialization of new technologies, especially where those technologies can provide real world, on the ground benefits for farmers across the country.″

Koch says more details about the nuts and bolts of the partnership and the various research projects the two groups will co-develop will be shared in the near future.

Back in October, AAI-MSU and John Deere announced the formation of a master research agreement to work together to ″move agricultural automomy forward.″