Precision Viticulture is experiencing substantial growth thanks to the availability of improved and cost-effective instruments and methodologies for data acquisition and analysis, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), that demonstrated to compete with traditional acquisition platforms, such as satellite and aircraft, due to low operational costs, high operational flexibility and high spatial resolution of imagery. In order to optimize the use of these technologies for precision viticulture, their technical, scientific and economic performances need to be assessed. The aim of this work is to compare NDVI surveys performed with UAV, aircraft and satellite, to assess the capability of each platform to represent the intra-vineyard vegetation spatial variability. NDVI images of two Italian vineyards were acquired simultaneously from different multi-spectral sensors onboard the OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2015, 7 2972 three platforms, and a spatial statistical framework was used to assess their degree of similarity. Moreover, the pros and cons of each technique were also assessed performing a cost analysis as a function of the scale of application. Results indicate that the different platforms provide comparable results in vineyards characterized by coarse vegetation gradients and large vegetation clusters. On the contrary, in more heterogeneous vineyards, low-resolution images fail in representing part of the intra-vineyard variability. The cost analysis showed that the adoption of UAV platform is advantageous for small areas and that a break-even point exists above five hectares; above such threshold, airborne and then satellite have lower imagery cost.

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High spatial ground resolution and highly flexible and timely control due to reduced planning time are the strengths of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms for remote sensing applications. These characteristics make them ideal especially in the medium–small agricultural systems typical of many Italian viticulture areas of excellence. UAV can be equipped with a wide range of sensors useful for several applications. Numerous assessments have been made using several imaging sensors with different flight times. This paper describes the implementation of a multisensor UAV system capable of flying with three sensors simultaneously to perform different monitoring options. The intra-vineyard variability was assessed in terms of characterization of the state of vines vigor using a multispectral camera, leaf temperature with a thermal camera and an innovative approach of missing plants analysis with a high spatial resolution RGB camera. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values detected in different vigor blocks were compared with shoot weights, obtaining a good regression (R2 = 0.69). The crop water stress index (CWSI) map, produced after canopy pure pixel filtering, highlighted the homogeneous water stress areas. The performance index developed from RGB images shows that the method identified 80% of total missing plants. The applicability of a UAV platform to use RGB, multispectral and thermal sensors was tested for specific purposes in precision viticulture and was demonstrated to be a valuable tool for fast multipurpose monitoring in a vineyard.

A low-cost air quality station has been developed for real-time monitoring of main atmospheric pollutants. Sensors for CO, CO2, NO2, O3, VOC, PM2.5 and PM10 were integrated on an Arduino Shield compatible board. As concerns PM2.5 and PM10 sensors, the station underwent a laboratory calibration and later a field validation. Laboratory calibration has been carried out at the headquarters of CNR-IBIMET in Florence (Italy) against a TSI DustTrak reference instrument. A MATLAB procedure, implementing advanced mathematical techniques to detect possible complex non-linear relationships between sensor signals and reference data, has been developed and implemented to accomplish the laboratory calibration. Field validation has been performed across a full “heating season” (1 November 2016 to 15 April 2017) by co-locating the station at a road site in Florence where an official fixed air quality station was in operation. Both calibration and validation processes returned fine scores, in most cases better than those achieved for similar systems in the literature. During field validation, in particular, for PM2.5 and PM10 mean biases of 0.036 and 0.598 µg/m3, RMSE of 4.056 and 6.084 µg/m3, and R2 of 0.909 and 0.957 were achieved, respectively. Robustness of the developed station, seamless deployed through a five and a half month outdoor campaign without registering sensor failures or drifts, is a further key point.