Unmanned aerial vehicles finding way in sectors as varied as agriculture, realty and film-making

If K M Ramesh has his way, the price of tomatoes in Indian markets will not swing as dramatically as they do. The 45-year-old seeks to accomplish this not by way of policy regulation, but with a little help from technology.At the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Ramesh along with a team of researchers has built a miniature remotecontrolled vehicle that can hover above farmland and gather data that helps monitor the growth of crops, detect diseases and estimate crop yield months ahead of the harvest.The unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone as it is popularly known, was used to collect data at tomato farms in Karnataka's Kolar district for three months at the end of 2013.