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Crop loss evaluation using digital surface models from unmanned aerial vehicles data

Garcia Millan, Virginia E. LU ; Rankine, Cassidy and Sanchez-Azofeifa, G. Arturo (2020) In Remote Sensing 12(6).
Abstract

Precision agriculture and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are revolutionizing agriculture management methods. Remote sensing data, image analysis and Digital Surface Models derived from Structure from Motion and Multi-View Stereopsis offer new and fast methods to detect the needs of crops, greatly improving crops efficiency. In this study, we present a tool to detect and estimate crop damage after a disturbance (i.e., weather event, wildlife attacks or fires). The types of damage that are addressed in this study affect crop structure (i.e., plants are bent or gone), in the shape of depressions in the crop canopy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of four unsupervised methods based on terrain analyses, for the... (More)

Precision agriculture and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are revolutionizing agriculture management methods. Remote sensing data, image analysis and Digital Surface Models derived from Structure from Motion and Multi-View Stereopsis offer new and fast methods to detect the needs of crops, greatly improving crops efficiency. In this study, we present a tool to detect and estimate crop damage after a disturbance (i.e., weather event, wildlife attacks or fires). The types of damage that are addressed in this study affect crop structure (i.e., plants are bent or gone), in the shape of depressions in the crop canopy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of four unsupervised methods based on terrain analyses, for the detection of damaged crops in UAV 3D models: slope detection, variance analysis, geomorphology classification and cloth simulation filter. A full workflow was designed and described in this article that involves the postprocessing of the raw results from the terrain analyses, for a refinement in the detection of damages. Our results show that all four methods performed similarly well after postprocessing-reaching an accuracy above to 90%-in the detection of severe crop damage, without the need of training data. The results of this study suggest that the used methods are effective and independent of the crop type, crop damage and growth stage. However, only severe damages were detected with this workflow. Other factors such as data volume, processing time, number of processing steps and spatial distribution of targets and errors are discussed in this article for the selection of the most appropriate method. Among the four tested methods, slope analysis involves less processing steps, generates the smallest data volume, is the fastest of methods and resulted in best spatial distribution of matches. Thus, it was selected as the most efficient method for crop damage detection.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Crop loss estimation, Digital surface models, Precision agriculture, Structure from motion, Unmanned aerial vehicles
in
Remote Sensing
volume
12
issue
6
article number
981
publisher
MDPI AG
external identifiers
  • scopus:85082293742
ISSN
2072-4292
DOI
10.3390/rs12060981
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
aa66032f-a7b4-4b58-b1ee-2c7ca78e6a1a
date added to LUP
2020-04-07 08:48:24
date last changed
2022-04-18 21:29:35
@article{aa66032f-a7b4-4b58-b1ee-2c7ca78e6a1a,
  abstract     = {{<p>Precision agriculture and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are revolutionizing agriculture management methods. Remote sensing data, image analysis and Digital Surface Models derived from Structure from Motion and Multi-View Stereopsis offer new and fast methods to detect the needs of crops, greatly improving crops efficiency. In this study, we present a tool to detect and estimate crop damage after a disturbance (i.e., weather event, wildlife attacks or fires). The types of damage that are addressed in this study affect crop structure (i.e., plants are bent or gone), in the shape of depressions in the crop canopy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of four unsupervised methods based on terrain analyses, for the detection of damaged crops in UAV 3D models: slope detection, variance analysis, geomorphology classification and cloth simulation filter. A full workflow was designed and described in this article that involves the postprocessing of the raw results from the terrain analyses, for a refinement in the detection of damages. Our results show that all four methods performed similarly well after postprocessing-reaching an accuracy above to 90%-in the detection of severe crop damage, without the need of training data. The results of this study suggest that the used methods are effective and independent of the crop type, crop damage and growth stage. However, only severe damages were detected with this workflow. Other factors such as data volume, processing time, number of processing steps and spatial distribution of targets and errors are discussed in this article for the selection of the most appropriate method. Among the four tested methods, slope analysis involves less processing steps, generates the smallest data volume, is the fastest of methods and resulted in best spatial distribution of matches. Thus, it was selected as the most efficient method for crop damage detection.</p>}},
  author       = {{Garcia Millan, Virginia E. and Rankine, Cassidy and Sanchez-Azofeifa, G. Arturo}},
  issn         = {{2072-4292}},
  keywords     = {{Crop loss estimation; Digital surface models; Precision agriculture; Structure from motion; Unmanned aerial vehicles}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{6}},
  publisher    = {{MDPI AG}},
  series       = {{Remote Sensing}},
  title        = {{Crop loss evaluation using digital surface models from unmanned aerial vehicles data}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs12060981}},
  doi          = {{10.3390/rs12060981}},
  volume       = {{12}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}