Unmanned agriculture relies more on the technological equipment of agricultural drones, which is a breakthrough science and technology that appeared in 2014. Agricultural drones are equipped with GPS navigation systems for automatic cruise and standard cameras automatically controlled by the cruise system; software on the ground allows the drones to take high-resolution pictures of the ground. The drone's cruise software uses traditional radios to control the drone's flight, including designing the flight path to maximize the area of the farm, and controlling the cameras for later image processing. In a low-resolution state (that is, flying to a height of 120 meters to observe crops, which is the normal flying height of unmanned aerial vehicles stipulated by the US government, and if it is higher, it needs to be reported to the air traffic control department), allowing farmers to see Images not seen before. Compared with images captured by satellites, images captured by drones are cheaper and have higher resolution.

Drones can provide farmers with three types of detailed information. The first, viewing crops from the air, helps farmers spot irrigation problems, soil problems, and even pests and fungus that are invisible to the naked eye. Second, aerial cameras can provide multi-layered pictures, which can capture both ordinary visual spectrum photos and infrared photos, helping farmers spot crop health problems that are invisible to the naked eye. Third, drones can fly weekly, daily, or even hourly, providing chronological animations that demonstrate changes in crop growth, providing opportunities for better crop management or identifying problems. This is part of a trend towards data-driven agriculture.