Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for environmental applications special issue preface

Abstract

This special issue on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for Environmental Applications makes three important contributions: (1) It marks the launch of a new section in the International Journal of Remote Sensing (IJRS), which we have called Drones. (2) It captures key contributions from the 5 th Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) for Environmental Research (UAS4Enviro2017) conference, which was held at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal, from 28 to 30 of June 2017. (3) It collects a wide range of papers on UAS, in addition to those presented at the conference. Drones are indeed a key new technology for remote sensing, and one that has grown rapidly in recent years. According to the database, Web of Science (published by Clarivate Analytics), the first significant use in IJRS of any of the terms UAS, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drones, for example, in the title, abstract, or keyword of an article, was in 2009, in a paper by Dunford et al. (2009). It was not until 2012 that another paper used one of those terms. After that, the numbers increased very quickly, and by 2017, IJRS published 68 papers that referenced these terms. Most notably, 2017 also saw the first IJRS special issue on UAS, titled 'Unmanned aerial vehicles for environmental applications' (The Editors 2017). This current special issue is a direct follow-on from that major collection of papers, and the fact that we are able to have two major special issues on this topic in the space of just over one year, is further evidence of its importance. By placing UAS papers in the new Drones section of IJRS, we aim to foster dialogue amongst the UAS community, and highlight the rapid advances made in this field. However, the need for a separate section for drone-related work may not seem CONTACT Anita Simic Milas

Sentinel-2 Validation for Spatial Variability Assessment in Overhead Trellis System Viticulture Versus UAV and Agronomic Data

“…The choice of one platform over another is always based on a compromise, which depends on the objectives of monitoring spatial variability and the economic and human resources available to end-users such as agricultural companies. It is undeniable that the factor that has exponentially encouraged the spread of UAV application in agriculture is the continuous advance in sensor technologies, providing higher resolution, lower weight and dimensions, and cost reduction [23,[25][26][27][28]. Several authors describe a wide range of UAV applications for PV purposes: vigor and biomass [29][30][31][32][33][34], yield and quality monitoring [35,36], water stress [37][38][39][40][41], canopy management [42], diseases [43][44][45][46], weeds [47][48][49], and missing plants [50][51][52][53].…”

Drones and global navigation satellite systems: current evidence from polar scientists

“…There were nine scientists using both aerial and underwater drones, but their data were excluded because it proved to be unreliable. 1 The scientists were asked the following question and options: When using your aerial drone for research applications, which of the following GNSS do you use for its navigation and positioning?…”

Radiometric Correction of Multispectral UAS Images: Evaluating the Accuracy of the Parrot Sequoia Camera and Sunshine Sensor

“…Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) are used extensively for environmental monitoring, and there has been a sharp increase in the number of studies since 2010 (e.g., [1,2]), with the largest number of publications in the field of agriculture [1]. Zarco-Tejada [3] initially demonstrated the potential to derive biophysical parameters from data collected with sensors carried by UASs, and UAS data have been used extensively for precision agriculture (e.g., [4,5]).…”

“…Zarco-Tejada [3] initially demonstrated the potential to derive biophysical parameters from data collected with sensors carried by UASs, and UAS data have been used extensively for precision agriculture (e.g., [4,5]). UASs are also commonly used in forestry [1,6] and for more general environmental monitoring [2]. Major advantages of using UASs for data collection are the possibility to frequently obtain data with high spatial resolution at relatively low cost, and the flexibility to collect data with short notice and with optimal timing for the phenomena also studied under cloudy conditions (e.g., [7,8]).…”