AirGuard
- Detect early signs of stress and disease
- Monitor multiple pitches in a single flight
- Guide maintenance and pitch rotation
Fill in your details and one of our experts will be in touch shortly to arrange a personalised demo.
"*" indicates required fields
From reactive to proactive pitch management
AirGuard is a drone-based monitoring system that gives grounds managers a data-driven view of pitch health and performance. Combining high-resolution aerial imagery it transforms raw data into actionable insights for smarter maintenance, consistent playing quality and greater control throughout the season.
How it works
A drone captures high-resolution multispectral imagery of every pitch, with optional thermal imaging. AirGuard turns the data into geo-referenced turf-health maps.
1. Capture
- Multispectral: DJI Mavic 3M captures RGB and multispectral data to assess plant health and stress across all pitches.
- Thermal (optional): DJI Matrice 4T captures thermal data to identify temperature and moisture differences in selected areas.
2. Process
Upload the data and AirGuard generates:
- Multispectral maps: NDVI, NDRE and chlorophyll maps reveal early plant stress, uneven growth, nutrient issues and poor recovery. NDVI shows overall plant health and vegetation density, while NDRE is more sensitive to changes in chlorophyll and can help detect stress at an earlier stage.
- Thermal maps: Canopy temperature and moisture maps reveal dry spots, irrigation issues, soil heating and differences in water distribution.
3. Act
- AI highlights critical areas and tracks changes between flights.
- Pinpoint irrigation, dry spots and recovery issues.
- Prioritise maintenance and pitch rotation to protect turf recovery.
AI-generated annotations & issues
AirGuard doesn’t just give you a map. It finds the problem areas for you, ranks them and tracks them over time, so your team spends its time fixing issues, not searching for them.
Issues ranked by severity
AI detects stress zones on every flight and lists them by severity, highest first.
What you get: you start with the areas that matter most, instead of scanning the whole pitch yourself.
Trend per area
Every issue shows whether it has got worse, stayed stable or improved since the previous flight.
What you get: you see at a glance whether a problem is growing, and whether your treatment is working.
Annotations that build site knowledge
Set the issue type, add a description or adjust the severity. Everything is stored with your site and helps recognise the problem next time.
What you get: knowledge about your pitches stays in the system, not in one person’s head.
Hotspots and flagged areas
Spot what stands out
See which zones score above or below the average of your pitches, or show only the flagged areas.
What you get: the outliers jump out, even on a pitch that looks fine overall.
Rate of change
See which zones are changing faster or slower than the rest, positive or negative.
What you get: you know whether the surface is developing well, and whether your measures are paying off.
Flagged areas only
Tick flagged areas to show only the zones that stand out from the rest of the field, such as obvious stress or low scores.
List grid
List grid
A health index stressed score per pitch, with all your fields in one overview: healthy m², overall m² and critical m².
Compare view
Compare view
Select the dates of the flights you want to compare and use the slider to see how surface quality and stress levels changed against each other. This is the view for showing progression.
Every flight makes the next one worth more
AirGuard isn’t a one-off scan. Every flight adds another layer of data, revealing more over time.
- Flight 1 — Snapshot: See the condition of every pitch, including hidden stress.
- Flight 5 — Trends: Track what’s improving, worsening and whether interventions work.
- Flight 10 — Patterns: Identify recurring wear, slow-recovery zones and problem areas.
- Season 2 — Evidence: Compare seasons and support investment decisions with data.
- Digital twin — Full history: Build a complete, evolving record of every pitch you manage.
FAQ
Flights can be done by your own staff or by an external pilot. Either way, the pilot needs a valid drone pilot certificate for your country (for example the A2 CofC in the UK, the A1/A3 + A2 license in the EU, and the FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate in the U.S.). Prefer not to fly yourself? We can support you in choosing a certified drone service provider.
As often as you like: flights and analyses are unlimited within all AirGuard subscriptions. A weekly flight during the season is a good starting point, with extra flights recommended around matches, events and severe weather conditions. Your agronomist can help you find the right rhythm.
A typical flight takes around 2–5 minutes per pitch, depending on the altitude flown. Larger areas or multiple pitches may require additional flight time, depending on the size of the area and the distance between pitches.
Yes. AirGuard can be used inside stadiums, although the stadium design can affect the flight. In very enclosed stadiums, limited GPS reception can make flying more challenging. More open stadiums are generally suitable, especially when the roof is open. We assess the stadium layout during set-up to determine the best approach.
AirGuard supports both multispectral and thermal drones. Get in touch with us to check whether your drone is compatible. If you don’t have a suitable drone yet, we can also provide multispectral and thermal drone options, ready to use with AirGuard.
No. AirGuard is designed to be easy to use, with automated flight missions and data processing. Once the flight mission is set up, operating the drone is largely a matter of starting the mission and monitoring the flight. However, you do need the appropriate drone pilot certificates and permissions required for your location.
Yes. AirGuard supports multiple users, so your grounds team, agronomist and performance staff can all work from the same data.
Download our brochure
"*" indicates required fields
