Drone-Based Remote Sensing in Agriculture Production

Abstract

Rapid-developing drone technology is expected to contribute to the development of smart agriculture, which is urgently needed to address the serious challenges posed by the aging and decreasing number of farmers in the agricultural sector. While drones are already used for agricultural applications such as pesticide spraying, their utilization in remote sensing is expected to bring significant efficiency gains through data analysis of meaningful aerial imagery. Typically, a drone-based multi-spectral camera is capable of capturing images at multiple wavelengths, which are useful for assessing the health and growth of crops. By measuring vegetation indices that represent plant growth and activity based on the multi-spectral images, the quality of crop growth can be assessed for further filed management decision-making. The highly efficient, field-specific growth diagnosis can be easily achieved by setting the drone flight altitude to over 100m and utilizing professional agricultural mapping software to process large amounts of aerial imagery.