AeroVironment Talks Up Agriculture Drone on CNBC’s Mad Money

Drone industry leader AeroVironment received an extravagant gift in the ol’ corporate stocking this year – national media exposure.

CEO Wahid Nawabi appeared on CNBC’s Mad Money last week to tout the wonders of Quantix, a $16,000 hybrid aircraft designed for use by farmers and other agricultural pros.

Nawabi shared with host Jim Cramer:

“What we’ve done is we’ve taken drones and software analytics and turned it into an app. If you can turn on a tablet, push ‘Go,’ the drone and the software does all the rest. It’s fully automatic: take off vertically and transition to horizontal flight, come back and land on its own while you’re having a cup of coffee.”

The company states Quantix provides farmers with “the same air superiority, trusted certainty and security AeroVironment is known for as the leading drone supplier to the U.S. Department of Defense.”

Indeed, Quantix sports a strong array of features tailored for aerial imagery and data-driven analysis for the agricultural sector.

Quantix by the Numbers

• Long-range – Flies up to 400 acres per 45 minute flight
• Cruising speed of 40 mph
• FAA compliant: 400 feet AGL, visual line of sight
• Features “Return Home” and “Emergency Land” override features
• Dedicated interface via included Android™ tablet
• “Push-to-launch” command
• Automated takeoff, flight and landing
• OneTouch planning & launch

AeroVironment unveiled Quantix last year at the Drone World Expo. “We started with the customer’s needs and built backwards,” product-line manager Tom Stone said at the expo’s press briefing. “It is all about acquiring the data  . . . if you can draw a box and press a button – you can fly it.”

Following the unveiling, DroneLife editor-in-chief Frank Schroth offered this insightful analysis:

“In providing this solution, [AeroVironment] will be competing with more recent nimble companies such as DroneDeploy and Kespry. They seek to emulate the benefits of those systems (e.g. ease of use, powerful cloud based analytics) with their heavy duty drones. However, we expect this to come at a bit of a cost.”