AgEagle adopts name change, readies for changes in ag drone markets
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
In order to portray the company’s growth beyond the agricultural drone markets it currently serves, AgEagle Aerial Systems is rebranding itself as EagleNXT.
In a statement, the company said the rebrand reflects EagleNXT’s mission to produce drones, sensors, and software across a wide range of market sectors to serve both government and commercial customers.
“The new name reflects the company’s evolution and strategic focus on delivering innovative drone solutions across defense, agriculture, public safety and commercial markets,” the statement says.
The rebranding comes at a critical time for the agricultural drone market segment, as a U.S. ban on the importation of Chinese-made drones and related components seems to be increasingly likely. China-based DJI is the world leader in the approximately $2 billion agricultural drone market, a market that is projected to reach $8 billion by 2029, according to Markets and Markets research.
In an interview, EagleNXT CEO Bill Irby said the initial efforts that the Trump administration has taken to limit the access of Chinese-made drones to the U.S. airspace already have created some ripple effects in the American drone and drone products markets.
“I think that’s going to promote growth in the US drone industry for us,” he said. In the near term the greatest impact of more restrictive U.S. trade policies is likely to be felt first in the market for drone-mounted cameras, he said. EagleNXT is a leading producer of cameras used in agriculture and other applications.
Just last month the company announced the release of a new product, RedEdge-P™ Green, a new multispectral camera designed to provide farmers, researchers, and environmental managers with more accurate, high-resolution data to inform decisions from planting through harvest.
The company expects the new camera to add value to the agricultural drone market, by allowing agricultural producers to perform crop assessments remotely, instead of depending on sending human workers out into the fields.
“In particular, one of the major infestations or diseases that was being looked at was something called powdery mildew. And this sensor is exceptional in detecting powdery mildew, among other (crop diseases),” Irby said.
“So, the application of drone technology in agriculture is pretty significant, because what do farmers care about?” he said. “Either the private or the industrial farmers are looking to increase yield and increase their efficiencies. So, how much money can they make per hour of labor? By providing remote technology they can do these assessments.”
Such crop assessments usually are done through a third-party service provider, who will buy the cameras and fly the assessment missions to earn a fee from the farmer.
Because the company’s cameras are designed to fly on different configurations of quadcopter, electric vertical takeoff and landing drones, “they’re used not only by the Chinese manufacturer, by all the other competitors as well,” Irby said.
EagleNXT’s cameras are compliant with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with all the component parts manufactured in the U.S. or allied nations, Irby said. This means they’ll still be available to be sold in the U.S. market, even in the event of a ban on certain foreign-made drone components, such as those produced by DJI. “We built the camera in the US. Some of the parts are from international suppliers,” he said.
Irby said EagleNXT does not compete directly with DJI when it comes to manufacturing agricultural drones. One issue confronting U.S.-based drone companies is the fact that DJI products are often far less expensive compared with other agricultural drones with the same capabilities. However, Irby said that he expects this price differential will ease over the long term.
“The DJI phase-out is going to happen over time. And as the US industry grows, the price of those systems is going to go down,” he said. “But to think that we or anybody in the industry could match a DJI price today is not possible without significant government investment, just like the Chinese government has invested in that industry and supplemented them to be able to go to market in a huge way.”
In the statement on the rebranding effort, the company said EagleNXT’s platforms have completed more than one million flights conducted globally, across defense, public safety, agriculture, infrastructure and environmental-monitoring applications. “The company’s drone systems have achieved multiple industry firsts, including FAA approvals for operations over people (OOP) and Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), as well as EASA C2 certification in Europe and inclusion on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Blue UAS list,” according to the statement.
“EagleNXT’s sensors are integrated on more than 150 different drone models and are used in over 100 research publications worldwide, reinforcing its leadership in precision agriculture, surveying and environmental sustainability initiatives.”
Read more:
Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
