Drone Ag has unveiled Spheres Version 2, a significant upgrade to its Skippy Scout app, designed to make drone-based crop monitoring faster, easier, and more actionable. The update introduces a cleaner, mobile-friendly interface and new functionality that helps users navigate fields, calibrate imagery, and analyze crop health with greater precision.
Farmers can now zoom into images, view AI-enhanced scout points, and apply crop health indices in real time – all from their smartphone. The goal: to bridge the gap between traditional satellite-based prescription mapping and on-demand drone imagery.
Higher resolution, faster decisions
“Skippy’s new Spheres Indexing tool will bridge the gap between the prescription mapping tools farmers are used to in satellite-powered farm management software, and the on-demand drone imagery that Skippy Scout provides,” said Alex Macdonald-Smith, COO at Drone Ag.
Unlike satellite imagery, which can be limited by resolution and cloud cover, Skippy aims to deliver high-resolution, ground-truth data on demand. Farmers and agronomists can quickly identify variations in vegetation density and type, then export zoned prescription files for targeted input application.
From crop health indices to actionable insights
The indexing feature combines drone imagery with AI-driven analytics, enabling users to pinpoint healthy and stressed areas within a field. This supports faster scouting, better planning, and more confident decision-making – critical as growers face tighter margins and regulatory pressure.
“We are iterative in our approach to development, so these features just get better with time,” Macdonald-Smith told AgTechNavigator. “We want Skippy to be able to service everyone from independent growers with a small drone they keep in their truck for monitoring their 500 acres, to monitoring crops on giant, ring-fenced farming enterprises in places like Australia and Canada, with fully automated base-station solutions installed on site.”
The company uses anonymised scout point image data, captured by clients with their permission to train its models to spot various different things within new images. This is done through a steady stream of data annotation. “Though it is slow going and laborious, it means the system just keeps getting better over time. This means we can provide accurate ground truth data with regards to aspects like green-on-green weed detection, ‘true’ crop only GAI readings and more.”
Upcoming features include comparison tools for tracking changes over time, crop zoning, and automatic prescription file generation. Drone Ag also plans to open its Scout Sphere technology to third-party drone operators via web portal or API, expanding its reach beyond agriculture.
Beyond farming: wider applications emerging
While the primary focus remains arable cropping, Spheres is already being used in forestry, conservation, and event planning – mapping festival sites and monitoring river restoration projects. Future ambitions include pasture management and integration with farm management platforms.
