Flying Low and Slow: High Resolution Imagery for...

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Flying Low and Slow: High Resolution Imagery for

Agricultural Field ResearchEileen Perry, Glenn Fitzgerald, Ian Goodwin, James

Nuttall, Mark O’ Connell

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

BackgroundWhy not satellite imagery?

• Resolution, timing, clouds

Why so many pixels?• Separating the canopy from

background soil and vegetation

What’s different about research trials?• Targets vs. continuous coverage• Accuracy (‘quantitative’ remote

sensing)

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Some Trials Using UAS

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

AgFACE, ‘Laboratory Without Walls’

530ppm400ppm

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Early Frost Detection

Spectrometer results

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Profitable Pears: Managing Canopy NCanopy Chlorophyll Concentration Index (CCCI)Works for cereals, why not pears?

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Profitable Pears: Managing Canopy N• Target the plots, not the orchard• Don’t depend solely on technology (such as GPS)• Calibration accuracy is key

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Profitable Pears: Managing Canopy N

R2= 0.67RMSE %N = 0.24

NDVI M3CI

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Challenges for Quantitative Remote Sensing

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Challenges for Quantitative RS

Reflectance calibration, what’s good enough?• Multi-band, multi-path• Thermal instability

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Estimating Uncertainty using Error Propagation

• Estimated uncertainty based on simple error propagation

• Reduce NDRE/NDVI toM3CI = (RNIR+Rred-RRE)/(RNIR-Rred+RRE)

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0 0.02 0.04 0.06

Erro

r in

%N

Erro

r in

Inde

x Va

lue

Error in Reflectance(0-1)

δIndex (M3CI 0.46)δIndex (M3CI 0.77)δ %N (M3CI 0.46)δ %N (M3CI 0.77)

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Challenges for Quantitative RS

• Reflectance calibration, what’s good enough?Multi-band, multi-path• Thermal instability

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

MicaSense Red-edge Tetracam MicroMCA

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Challenges for Quantitative RS

• Reflectance calibration, what’s good enough?• Multi-band, multi-pathThermal instability

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

5 °C

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

Challenges for Quantitative RS

• Reflectance calibration, what’s good enough?• Multi-band, multi-pathThermal instability

• FLIR stated accuracy ± 2.0 °C; precision 0.032 °C• With warm-up ≥ 3 minutes, uncertainty of 43DNs (16 bit),

~0.6°C

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

"Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration" (Thomas Alva Edison)

If you don’t succeed, fly, fly again…

Ag Research