Validation and Calibration of a High Resolution Sensor in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Producing Images in the IR Range Utilizable in Precision Agriculture

Abstract

Present-day agriculture is using remote sensor technology to assess crop conditions in every aspect of the agrarian production. Therefore, an integrated system to manage sensor's data constitutes the foundation of precision agriculture. Validation and calibration of a highresolution sensor are very important to evaluate vegetation indexes, such as NDVI (Normalized Differential Vegetation Index), which shows the difference between regular red light reflected from plants and near-infrared light. Healthy chlorophyll absorbs red and reflects near-IR, while damaged chlorophyll reflects both. As a result, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles prove to be a low cost solution for obtaining high-quality aerial images in the IR range of crops. UAV technology has been widely used in the last 10 years for civilian uses as crop management. Small aircrafts and multicopters can take off and land anywhere flying for as much as 60 minutes and cover many hectares. As a result, crop technicians or farmers can press a start button on a laptop, tablet or smartphone and the UAV flies above the entire planned mission on its own. To assess crop conditions, agricultural UAVs should be fully autonomous, from takeoff to landing. This project comprises the development of a UAV designed to operate in the typical eastern plains of Colombia, implementation of automatic control systems, telemetry devices and sensors payload to interpret data for precision agriculture that will be used to increase production, increase income and decrease environmental impact in Colombian crops.