Trimble Adds Unmanned Aircraft System to its Agriculture Portfolio for Aerial Imaging and Mapping

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today the addition of its Trimble® UX5 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to its Agriculture product portfolio for aerial imaging and mapping. The Trimble UX5 system can enable Ag service providers to easily capture aerial images for scouting and monitoring crop health such as detecting pests, weeds and nitrogen deficiencies. The system can locate cattle and their available forage over large areas, measure crop height, and generate topographic maps and models for land leveling and drainage applications. As a result, the system provides farmers' trusted advisors—such as agronomists, Trimble resellers, and other Ag service providers—with a powerful data collection tool that can aid with recommendations to improve farming operations.

The Trimble UX5 system flies at 80 kilometers/hour (50 mph) and is stable in significant crosswinds and even light rain. In a single 50-minute flight, the Trimble UX5 system can cover a two square kilometer (0.8 square mile) area at five centimeter (two inch) image resolution. It comes with a camera modified to capture the near-infrared spectrum, which helps in deducing vegetation indexes for crop health assessment. The Trimble UX5 system can capture a variety of images to be processed post flight. The output of a single flight provides geo-referenced precision images, a digital surface model (DSM) showing elevations as a color image, and a dense 3D point cloud that includes elevations.

"The addition of the Trimble UX5 system strengthens our agriculture product portfolio and enables us to provide a solution that benefits a broad range of customers including growers, ranchers, water management contractors, agronomists and other Ag service providers," said Joe Denniston, vice president of Trimble's Agriculture Division. "High-speed aerial imaging is a powerful tool that can quickly and easily locate problem areas to be addressed. The faster a problem area is discovered, the better the chance it can be evaluated and resolved before crop yield is impacted."

Trimble provides training for system operators and their observers, which focuses on safety precautions and the application of the Trimble UX5 system for maximum success. The Trimble UX5 system is available from Authorized Agriculture Distribution Partners and is subject to regulations and restrictions defined by local civil aviation authorities. Unmanned aircraft systems are currently not allowed to be flown in some regions or for certain applications. For more information on the Trimble UX5 system, visit:  www.trimble.com/agriculture/ux5.

About Trimble's Agriculture Division

Trimble's Agriculture Division is a leader in precision agriculture, GPS and guidance solutions that help customers operate farm vehicles and implements more efficiently, save on input costs and increase yield and productivity. To ensure better decision making, Trimble offers an integrated operations management solution called Connected Farm™ that provides information exchange across the entire farm using industry-leading software and hardware. Additional Trimble solutions include vehicle and implement guidance and steering; application control for seed, liquid and granular products; laser- and GPS-based water management technology; and a harvest solution.

For more information on Trimble Agriculture, visit: www.trimble.com/agriculture.

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

For more information, visit:  www.trimble.com.

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SOURCE Trimble