Opportunities of Uavs in Orchard Management

Zhang, C.; Valente, João; Kooistra, Lammert; Guo, Lei; Wang, W.

doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-xlii-2-w13-673-2019

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In recent years, researchers have utilized sensor-based technology coupled with UAV systems in various applications for monitoring and decision-making in orchard management [29]. UAV sensing techniques have been used to extract the architectural traits in tree crops, such as canopy height, volume, and other structures [30,31].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization and Evaluation of Sensor Angles for Precise Assessment of Architectural Traits in Peach Trees

Raman

Carlos

Sankaran

2022

Sensors

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Fruit industries play a significant role in many aspects of global food security. They provide recognized vitamins, antioxidants, and other nutritional supplements packed in fresh fruits and other processed commodities such as juices, jams, pies, and other products. However, many fruit crops including peaches (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) are perennial trees requiring dedicated orchard management. The architectural and morphological traits of peach trees, notably tree height, canopy area, and canopy crown volume, help to determine yield potential and precise orchard management. Thus, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) coupled with RGB sensors can play an important role in the high-throughput acquisition of data for evaluating architectural traits. One of the main factors that define data quality are sensor imaging angles, which are important for extracting architectural characteristics from the trees. In this study, the goal was to optimize the sensor imaging angles to extract the precise architectural trait information by evaluating the integration of nadir and oblique images. A UAV integrated with an RGB imaging sensor at three different angles (90°, 65°, and 45°) and a 3D light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system was used to acquire images of peach trees located at the Washington State University’s Tukey Horticultural Orchard, Pullman, WA, USA. A total of four approaches, comprising the use of 2D data (from UAV) and 3D point cloud (from UAV and LiDAR), were utilized to segment and measure the individual tree height and canopy crown volume. Overall, the features extracted from the images acquired at 45° and integrated nadir and oblique images showed a strong correlation with the ground reference tree height data, while the latter was highly correlated with canopy crown volume. Thus, selection of the sensor angle during UAV flight is critical for improving the accuracy of extracting architectural traits and may be useful for further precision orchard management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization and Evaluation of Sensor Angles for Precise Assessment of Architectural Traits in Peach Trees

Raman

Carlos

Sankaran

2022

Sensors

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“…Studies with more focus on the automated and simultaneous classification are therefore recommended. • UAV versus ground vehicles: The differences of imagery capture angle and spatial resolution between UAV and ground vehicle significantly effects their performance in orchard management (Zhang et al 2019). Combining UAV and ground vehicle, or even other platforms (Table 1), could be an advantage, in different applications.…”

Section: Other Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, with the advent of the 5G era, it would also enable the efficient communication among UAVs and other platforms which are used to execute management operations. In this way, so-called swarm intelligence (SI) can be achieved in orchards where detection and actuation is divided among different platforms (Zhang et al 2019). • Active management platform: Current function of UAVs are mainly imaging and sensing (Fig.…”

Section: Uav Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orchard management with small unmanned aerial vehicles: a survey of sensing and analysis approaches

et al. 2021

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Advances in sensor miniaturization are increasing the global popularity of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based remote sensing applications in many domains of agriculture. Fruit orchards (the source of the fruit industry chain) require site-specific or even individual-tree-specific management throughout the growing season—from flowering, fruitlet development, ripening, and harvest—to tree dormancy. The recent increase in research on deploying UAV in orchard management has yielded new insights but challenges relating to determining the optimal approach (e.g., image-processing methods) are hampering widespread adoption, largely because there is no standard workflow for the application of UAVs in orchard management. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review focused on UAV-based orchard management: the survey includes achievements to date and shortcomings to be addressed. Sensing system architecture focusing on UAVs and sensors is summarized. Then up-to-date applications supported by UAVs in orchard management are described, focusing on the diversity of data-processing techniques, including monitoring efficiency and accuracy. With the goal of identifying the gaps and examining the opportunities for UAV-based orchard management, this study also discusses the performance of emerging technologies and compare similar research providing technical and comprehensive support for the further exploitation of UAVs and a revolution in orchard management.

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“…On the one hand, drones can take aerial images that can be used to plan these tasks: detecting the most problematic areas, selecting the vegetation to remove, planning routes for its extraction, etc. Some techniques developed for precision agriculture can be applied in this context [12], such as the detection and identification of plants and trees in highresolution images [13], three-dimensional LIDAR scans [14], and multispectral images [15] acquired by drones. In all these tasks, drones have been revealed as a suitable alternative to satellites, since they offer greater availability at a lower cost, as well as they are less dependent on the weather conditions in the area of interest [16].…”

Section: Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey on Robotic Technologies for Forest Firefighting: Applying Drone Swarms to Improve Firefighters’ Efficiency and Safety

2021

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Forest firefighting missions encompass multiple tasks related to prevention, surveillance, and extinguishing. This work presents a complete survey of firefighters on the current problems in their work and the potential technological solutions. Additionally, it reviews the efforts performed by the academy and industry to apply different types of robots in the context of firefighting missions. Finally, all this information is used to propose a concept of operation for the comprehensive application of drone swarms in firefighting. The proposed system is a fleet of quadcopters that individually are only able to visit waypoints and use payloads, but collectively can perform tasks of surveillance, mapping, monitoring, etc. Three operator roles are defined, each one with different access to information and functions in the mission: mission commander, team leaders, and team members. These operators take advantage of virtual and augmented reality interfaces to intuitively get the information of the scenario and, in the case of the mission commander, control the drone swarm.

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Opportunities of Uavs in Orchard Management

Cited by 15 publications

References 37 publications

Optimization and Evaluation of Sensor Angles for Precise Assessment of Architectural Traits in Peach Trees

Optimization and Evaluation of Sensor Angles for Precise Assessment of Architectural Traits in Peach Trees

Orchard management with small unmanned aerial vehicles: a survey of sensing and analysis approaches

A Survey on Robotic Technologies for Forest Firefighting: Applying Drone Swarms to Improve Firefighters’ Efficiency and Safety

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