The Relationship between Drone Speed and the Number of Flights in RFID Tag Reading for Plant Inventory  
[PERSON]  
1 Edisto Research and Education Center, 64 Research Road, Blackville, SC 29817, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
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2  
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3 Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas, CES, 2301 S. University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
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3 Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas, CES, 2301 S. University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
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5 Tidewater Agricultural Research & Extension Center, Virginia Tech, 6321 Holland Road, Suffolk, VA 23437, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
Robbins  
3 Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas, CES, 2301 S. University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
[PERSON]  
5 Tidewater Agricultural Research & Extension Center, Virginia Tech, 6321 Holland Road, Suffolk, VA 23437, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
Robbins  
3 Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas, CES, 2301 S. University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204, USA; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
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5 Tidewater Agricultural Research & Extension Center, Virginia Tech, 6321 Holland Road, Suffolk, VA 23437, USA; chapell@vt. Increased personnel or labor alone cannot alleviate the current inventory inefficiencies. The number of hours required in the field is considerable, and workers will be scarce as the horticultural industry's labor supply declines. The decline of workers is because most entry-level employees would prefer to work in a position that requires less physical exertion [5]. Similarly, just 20% of the workers in the nursery are permanent, with the remaining 80% being temporary [6]. Thus, accessibility to laborers will be a persistent issue. Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) can fly at low altitudes and carry various sensors to gather real-time data; thus, being a viable alternative for ground-based data collection in nursery systems [7]. Aside from inventory data, sUAS is used for crop scouting and loss assessment, yield estimation and monitoring, irrigation and drainage planning, sampling of plant pathogens in the air, diagnosis of herbicide injury in crops, and efficient use of chemicals and pesticides [8]. Additionally, researchers have worked on RFID used for identification, harvesting, and crop histology [9; 10; 11]. An RFID system was used to track, capture remotely, and handle data in a vineyard [12]. RFID systems and Global Positioning System (GPS) used to monitor and track plant information can be updated in real-time. Geographic Information System (GIS) software can be used to visualize information location to edit and manage data changes in the area. RFID technology combined with GPS was used in plant pathology and genomics [13] and citrus fruit harvesting in Florida [14]. Passive RFID tags and sUAS can be combined to gather information about nursery plants in the field. The passive tag at the Ultra-high frequency (UHF) band ranges from 0 distance to 12 m and has a faster data rate [15]. However, UHF is more susceptible to interference. It usually works between 860-960 MHz band [16]. Preliminary results showed that the drone flying at a speed of 6 km per hour (kph) at an altitude of between 4.5 and 6.0 m can scan tags on a static position with the front of the tags orientated to face upward toward the antenna [17]. Knox Nursery in Winter Garden, Florida, operates a greenhouse using a ground-based Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) RFID tag platform [18]. As a result, there was an increase in productivity and the number of hours required to update the inventory report has decreased from three days to two hours, demonstrating a drop in labor costs. In addition, individual plants can be tagged or labeled using RFID; allowing them to be compared to geo-referenced data from transplant machines.