Approaching of GOPRO camera embedded on UAV to calculate NDVI for corn’s crop

Abstract

Nitrogen (N) is a macronutrient used in large quantities in modern agriculture, due to a quantity required by plants. In the corn crop, it mainly acts on grain filling and affects protein content. One of the causes of the inefficiency of the use of nitrogen fertilizers in the corn crop is the difficulty in estimating in a timely manner the need of nitrogen fertilization through soil and / or plant analyzes. Looking for feasibility of the recommendation process of nitrogen fertilization in real time, researches has been developed aiming to detect nitrogen deficiency using remote sensing. In this paper the objective was to evaluate the feasibility of the use of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), calculated by means of multispectral image processing obtained with the GOPRO’s camera and the Micasense’s Seqouia camera, embedded in UAV’s, to recommend the application of nitrogen fertilizers to the corn crop. According to results obtained with this paper, it was possible to conclude that the determination of NDVI by means of aerial images is compatible with the determination of the index using active optical sensor (GreenSeeker).