An overview of current and potential applications of thermal remote sensing in precision agriculture

Khanal, Sami; Fulton, John P.; Shearer, S. A.

doi:10.1016/j.compag.2017.05.001

Cited by 471 publications

(259 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…• Thermal cameras have poor resolution and they are expensive. The price ranges from $2000-$50,000 depending on the quality and functionality, and the majority of thermal cameras have resolution of 640 pixels by 480 pixels [119]. • Thermal aerial images can be affected by many factors, such as the moisture in the atmosphere, shooting distance, and other sources of emitted and reflected thermal radiation.…”

Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• Thermal aerial images can be affected by many factors, such as the moisture in the atmosphere, shooting distance, and other sources of emitted and reflected thermal radiation. Therefore, calibration of aerial sensors is critical to extract scientifically reliable surface temperatures of objects [119]. • Temperature readings through aerial sensors can be affected by crop growth stages.…”

Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• With relaxed flight regulations and improvement in image processing, geo-referencing, mosaicing, and classification algorithms, UAV can provide a great potential for soil and crop monitoring [119], [144]. • The next generation of UAV sensors, such as 3p sensor [145], can provide on-board image processing and -Limited field applications.…”

Section: Research Trends and Future Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

et al. 2019

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The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is growing rapidly across many civil application domains including realtime monitoring, providing wireless coverage, remote sensing, search and rescue, delivery of goods, security and surveillance, precision agriculture, and civil infrastructure inspection. Smart UAVs are the next big revolution in UAV technology promising to provide new opportunities in different applications, especially in civil infrastructure in terms of reduced risks and lower cost. Civil infrastructure is expected to dominate the more that $45 Billion market value of UAV usage. In this survey, we present UAV civil applications and their challenges. We also discuss current research trends and provide future insights for potential UAV uses. Furthermore, we present the key challenges for UAV civil applications, including: charging challenges, collision avoidance and swarming challenges, and networking and security related challenges. Based on our review of the recent literature, we discuss open research challenges and draw high-level insights on how these challenges might be approached.

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Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Research Trends and Future Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

et al. 2019

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“…Despite these positive results, further improvements in image collection and processing [1,91,92] are required to reduce bias in the UAV-based SfM retrievals. Also, decreasing the time required for a fast and accurate delivery of precision agriculture solutions is necessary for practical application.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra-Season Crop Height Variability at Commercial Farm Scales Using a Fixed-Wing UAV

et al. 2018

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Monitoring the development of vegetation height through time provides a key indicator of crop health and overall condition. Traditional manual approaches for monitoring crop height are generally time consuming, labor intensive and impractical for large-scale operations. Dynamic crop heights collected through the season allow for the identification of within-field problems at critical stages of the growth cycle, providing a mechanism for remedial action to be taken against end of season yield losses. With advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies, routine monitoring of height is now feasible at any time throughout the growth cycle. To demonstrate this capability, five digital surface maps (DSM) were reconstructed from high-resolution RGB imagery collected over a field of maize during the course of a single growing season. The UAV retrievals were compared against LiDAR scans for the purpose of evaluating the derived point clouds capacity to capture ground surface variability and spatially variable crop height. A strong correlation was observed between structure-from-motion (SfM) derived heights and pixel-to-pixel comparison against LiDAR scan data for the intra-season bare-ground surface (R 2 = 0.77 − 0.99, rRMSE = 0.44% − 0.85%), while there was reasonable agreement between canopy comparisons (R 2 = 0.57 − 0.65, rRMSE = 37% − 50%). To examine the effect of resolution on retrieval accuracy and processing time, an evaluation of several ground sampling distances (GSD) was also performed. Our results indicate that a 10 cm resolution retrieval delivers a reliable product that provides a compromise between computational cost and spatial fidelity. Overall, UAV retrievals were able to accurately reproduce the observed spatial variability of crop heights within the maize field through the growing season and provide a valuable source of information with which to inform precision agricultural management in an operational context.

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“…Thermal remote sensing is proposed as a means of stress detection in crops as it is nondestructive, noncontact, rapid assessment capability, easy use, and more accurate than previously mentioned methods (Ahmed et al, 2018; Das et al, 2018; Khanal et al, 2017). Thermal remote sensing has been used to detect differences in canopy temperatures between water stressed and nonstressed plants (Idso et al, 1981; Jackson et al, 1981, 1982) and nitrogen stressed plants (Blad et al, 1988; Carroll, 2015; Ward, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Inverse Correlation between Corn Temperature and Nitrogen Stress: A Field Case Study

2019

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Nitrogen is one of the most important yield‐limiting nutrients for corn (Zea mays). The ability of thermal remote sensing to detect nitrogen deficiency in corn may enable precision agriculture to modify nitrogen rates according to field conditions. This study applies the exergy destruction principle as a theory to explain the inverse relationship between surface temperature and nitrogen rate. Two hypotheses were developed. First, it was hypothesized that agricultural crops experiencing greater growth and providing greater yield will have lower surface temperature. The second hypothesis was that corn grown under optimum levels of nitrogen will have lower surface temperatures compared to corn grown under nitrogen stressed conditions. Field studies were conducted during two summer seasons (2016 and 2017) on an established long‐term field trial of corn yield response to varying rates of nitrogen. It was found that corn surface temperature decreased as the rate of nitrogen increased. A shallow but statistically significant (P < 0.05) negative slope was observed consistently with increasing rates of nitrogen. Surface temperature measurements, however, were variable. This variability was the result of external and weather dependent variables that influenced leaf surface temperature. Despite this variability, the exergy destruction principle provides a theory from which thermal remote sensing can be applied through the use of surface temperature measurements to detect physiological stress in crop plants. Core Ideas Thermal remote sensing was proposed to detect nitrogen stress in corn plants. Nitrogen stressed plants had higher surface temperatures than less stressed plants. Temperature trends were consistent with the exergy destruction principle. Nitrogen‐temperature correlations were statistically significant at the 0.05 significance level. Corn yield increases with nitrogen rate increase and surface temperature decrease.

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An overview of current and potential applications of thermal remote sensing in precision agriculture

Cited by 471 publications

References 82 publications

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

Intra-Season Crop Height Variability at Commercial Farm Scales Using a Fixed-Wing UAV

An Inverse Correlation between Corn Temperature and Nitrogen Stress: A Field Case Study

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