Autonomous flying system for grasslands and fields monitoring

Abstract

Remote sensing is a very useful method for data collection in open spaces, especially in precision agriculture and has been widely used over centennial. This paper presents the development of methodologies and identification of a surface model grasslands and pastures based on of chosen guidelines and properties. The model will be used to automate the process of monitoring the grasslands based on the analysis of spatial data and computer analysis of aerial photographs obtained automatically.

Development of software for airborne photos analysis

“…Preparation of our apparatus for image acquisition is presented in [9], [10], [2]. As a control software we use software provided by mikrokopter.de.…”

“…The purpose of our research was to automate the process of recognizing objects and phenomena occurring on grasslands. As part of the activities undertaken we obtain numerous collections of images taken from the oktokopter [2]. They undergo a process of photo interpretation and computer image analysis to the future automatically, such as the use of artificial neural networks [3]- [7], [8] to interpret the status of meadows and pastures.…”

“…The purpose of the research is to automate the process of recognizing objects and phenomena occurring on grasslands. The basis for action are numerous collections of images taken from the oktokopter [2]. For the purpose of the collection, management and analysis of image data and character acquired in the course of research, in accordance with the principles of software engineering several computer programs has been produced.…”

IT system supporting acquisition of image data used in the identification of grasslands

“…Another important source of data for investigated empirical system will be all kinds of meadows and pastures maps in the form of raster and vector graphics. Equally important is an expert who will assess grasslands condition on the basis of results of organoleptic assisted biochemical tests [3,7]. The variety of information and lack of support in the form of dedicated software makes that the main objective of the research project or the construction of the method is difficult or even impossible to realize.…”

“…In the research process, which aims to develop a method for the automatic identification of grasslands condition, aerial photographs taken from the octocopter [7] and supplemented by additional metadata generated by the camera software will be the primary data source? The knowledge of proper methods for acquisition, processing and analysis of digital images [3] is required to obtain accurate information from the photographs of grasslands.…”