Economic efficiency of implementing unmanned aircraft systems in agricultural activities of institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia: limitations and potential

The article develops a methodological approach to assessing the economic efficiency of implementing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the agricultural activities of institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, taking into account security constraints. It is shown that increases in crop yields and reductions in material resource consumption can be achieved within the Penal System of the Russian Federation under an adapted cost and risk structure. The article proposes a shift from static «cost-benefit» models to a dynamic description of the field as a time series of vegetation indices, soil parameters, and land-use violation frequency. This makes it possible to isolate the stream of discounted prevented damage as a separate component of return on investment. A regime efficiency coefficient is introduced, reflecting the effect of reducing the workload on facility personnel and decreasing the number of incidents through aerial monitoring. A scheme for distributing flight tasks between UAVs and ground patrols is considered, taking into account no‑fly zones and altitude restrictions. Key technical, legal, and algorithmic limitations of implementing unmanned aircraft systems in the activities of the penal enforcement system are identified. It is demonstrated that accounting for prevented damage and regime‑related effects changes the payback period compared to civilian agriculture and imposes different requirements on the departmental methodology for investment justification.