Imagery from unmanned aerial vehicles for early site specific weed management

Abstract

A new aerial platform has become available in recent years for image acquisition, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). This article defines and evaluates the technical specifications of a UAV and the spatial and spectral properties of the images captured by two different sensors, a still visible band camera and a six-band multispectral camera, for early site-specific weed management applications (ESSWM). The tested UAV has shown promising ability for remote sensing for agricultural data collection. It enables the acquisition of ultra-high spatial resolution imagery (pixel size 1–5 cm). Moreover, the analysis of the spectral information acquired showed promising results for ESSWM.