<i>Mission Planning and Ortho-mosaicking of UAS Imagery for Remote Sensing in Precision Agriculture on Winter Wheat and a Subsurface Drip Irrigated (SDI) Corn Field</i>

Abstract

Abstract. Productivity demands on agricultural farmlands are constantly on the rise, as population increases and arable land decreases. Remote sensing efforts using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) conducted in conjunction with precision farming has significant promise in helping to maximize crop yields while optimizing inputs. Multispectral and thermal images captured via unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have the potential to quantify plant health, with regard to nutrient and water stress. This poster will provide an overview of how two camera systems were integrated with an unmanned octocopter UAS system and triggered to capture images at appropriate GPS locations. The GPS locations were provided from the mission plan developed and downloaded to the navigation system of the UAS using a popular open source software with due considerations for the field of view of the camera at the chosen elevation of the flight. Attention was paid so that there were sufficient forward and lateral overlaps of the image frames to facilitate post processing to obtain a single ortho-mosaicked image covering the study area. The research efforts presented here were conducted at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, over a winter wheat field and a subsurface drip irrigated corn field during the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons. In the past small airplanes and kites were used in remote sensing efforts but the cost of flying an airplane and the unreliability of kites have helped push the remote sensing field toward UAS technology. Remote sensing with UAS in precision agriculture offers many opportunities and possibilities for use in the future.