Drone-Based Optical, Thermal, and 3d Sensing for Diagnostic Information in Smart Farming – Systems and Algorithms –

Drone-based remote sensing has a great potential for spatial diagnostics of crops and soils in the information-based agricultural management (smart farming). This paper reports an advanced drone-based remote sensing system, integrated data processing, algorithms, and applications to smart farming. The system is equipped with higher-performance drone and three imaging modules, i.e., multispectral, thermal, and visible video imagers. The algorithms for diagnostic information derived from hyperspectral and thermal data were validated with drone-based sensing data. 3D models were also derived semi-automatically from the spectral, thermal, and video imagery. Drone-based remote sensing would be useful for timely and efficient acquisition of diagnostic information for smart faming.