scholarly journals Radiometric Correction of Multispectral UAS Images: Evaluating the Accuracy of the Parrot Sequoia Camera and Sunshine Sensor

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 577
Author(s):  
Per-Ola Olsson ◽  
Ashish Vivekar ◽  
Karl Adler ◽  
Virginia E. Garcia Millan ◽  
Alexander Koc ◽  
...  

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) carrying commercially sold multispectral sensors equipped with a sunshine sensor, such as Parrot Sequoia, enable mapping of vegetation at high spatial resolution with a large degree of flexibility in planning data collection. It is, however, a challenge to perform radiometric correction of the images to create reflectance maps (orthomosaics with surface reflectance) and to compute vegetation indices with sufficient accuracy to enable comparisons between data collected at different times and locations. Studies have compared different radiometric correction methods applied to the Sequoia camera, but there is no consensus about a standard method that provides consistent results for all spectral bands and for different flight conditions. In this study, we perform experiments to assess the accuracy of the Parrot Sequoia camera and sunshine sensor to get an indication if the quality of the data collected is sufficient to create accurate reflectance maps. In addition, we study if there is an influence of the atmosphere on the images and suggest a workflow to collect and process images to create a reflectance map. The main findings are that the sensitivity of the camera is influenced by camera temperature and that the atmosphere influences the images. Hence, we suggest letting the camera warm up before image collection and capturing images of reflectance calibration panels at an elevation close to the maximum flying height to compensate for influence from the atmosphere. The results also show that there is a strong influence of the orientation of the sunshine sensor. This introduces noise and limits the use of the raw sunshine sensor data to compensate for differences in light conditions. To handle this noise, we fit smoothing functions to the sunshine sensor data before we perform irradiance normalization of the images. The developed workflow is evaluated against data from a handheld spectroradiometer, giving the highest correlation (R2 = 0.99) for the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). For the individual wavelength bands, R2 was 0.80–0.97 for the red-edge, near-infrared, and red bands.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1144
Author(s):  
Mahendra Bhandari ◽  
Shannon Baker ◽  
Jackie C. Rudd ◽  
Amir M. H. Ibrahim ◽  
Anjin Chang ◽  
...  

Drought significantly limits wheat productivity across the temporal and spatial domains. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) has become an indispensable tool to collect refined spatial and high temporal resolution imagery data. A 2-year field study was conducted in 2018 and 2019 to determine the temporal effects of drought on canopy growth of winter wheat. Weekly UAS data were collected using red, green, and blue (RGB) and multispectral (MS) sensors over a yield trial consisting of 22 winter wheat cultivars in both irrigated and dryland environments. Raw-images were processed to compute canopy features such as canopy cover (CC) and canopy height (CH), and vegetation indices (VIs) such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Excess Green Index (ExG), and Normalized Difference Red-edge Index (NDRE). The drought was more severe in 2018 than in 2019 and the effects of growth differences across years and irrigation levels were visible in the UAS measurements. CC, CH, and VIs, measured during grain filling, were positively correlated with grain yield (r = 0.4–0.7, p < 0.05) in the dryland in both years. Yield was positively correlated with VIs in 2018 (r = 0.45–0.55, p < 0.05) in the irrigated environment, but the correlations were non-significant in 2019 (r = 0.1 to −0.4), except for CH. The study shows that high-throughput UAS data can be used to monitor the drought effects on wheat growth and productivity across the temporal and spatial domains.


Weed Science ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (02) ◽  
pp. 346-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisca López-Granados ◽  
Montse Jurado-Expósito ◽  
Jose M. Peña-Barragán ◽  
Luis García-Torres

Field research was conducted to determine the potential of hyperspectral and multispectral imagery for late-season discrimination and mapping of grass weed infestations in wheat. Differences in reflectance between weed-free wheat and wild oat, canarygrass, and ryegrass were statistically significant in most 25-nm-wide wavebands in the 400- and 900-nm spectrum, mainly due to their differential maturation. Visible (blue, B; green, G; red, R) and near infrared (NIR) wavebands and five vegetation indices: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI), R/B, NIR-R and (R − G)/(R + G), showed potential for discriminating grass weeds and wheat. The efficiency of these wavebands and indices were studied by using color and color-infrared aerial images taken over three naturally infested fields. In StaCruz, areas infested with wild oat and canarygrass patches were discriminated using the indices R, NIR, and NDVI with overall accuracies (OA) of 0.85 to 0.90. In Florida–West, areas infested with wild oat, canarygrass, and ryegrass were discriminated with OA from 0.85 to 0.89. In Florida–East, for the discrimination of the areas infested with wild oat patches, visible wavebands and several vegetation indices provided OA of 0.87 to 0.96. Estimated grass weed area ranged from 56 to 71%, 43 to 47%, and 69 to 80% of the field in the three locations, respectively, with per-class accuracies from 0.87 to 0.94. NDVI was the most efficient vegetation index, with a highly accurate performance in all locations. Our results suggest that mapping grass weed patches in wheat is feasible with high-resolution satellite imagery or aerial photography acquired 2 to 3 wk before crop senescence.


Author(s):  
Abdon Francisco Aureliano Netto ◽  
Rodrigo Nogueira Martins ◽  
Guilherme Silverio Aquino De Souza ◽  
Fernando Ferreira Lima Dos Santos ◽  
Jorge Tadeu Fim Rosas

This study aimed to modify a webcam by replacing its near-infrared (NIR) blocking filter to a low-cost red, green and blue (RGB) filter for obtaining NIR images and to evaluate its performance in two agricultural applications. First, the sensitivity of the webcam to differentiate normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) levels through five nitrogen (N) doses applied to the Batatais grass (Paspalum notatum Flugge) was verified. Second, images from maize crops were processed using different vegetation indices, and thresholding methods with the aim of determining the best method for segmenting crop canopy from the soil. Results showed that the webcam sensor was capable of detecting the effect of N doses through different NDVI values at 7 and 21 days after N application. In the second application, the use of thresholding methods, such as Otsu, Manual, and Bayes when previously processed by vegetation indices showed satisfactory accuracy (up to 73.3%) in separating the crop canopy from the soil.


Silva Fennica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petri Forsström ◽  
Jouni Peltoniemi ◽  
Miina Rautiainen

Accurate mapping of the spatial distribution of understory species from spectral images requires ground reference data which represent the prevailing phenological stage at the time of image acquisition. We measured the spectral bidirectional reflectance factors (BRFs, 350–2500 nm) at varying view angles for lingonberry ( L.) and blueberry ( L.) throughout the growing season of 2017 using Finnish Geospatial Research Institute’s FIGIFIGO field goniometer. Additionally, we measured spectra of leaves and berries of both species, and flowers of lingonberry. Both lingonberry and blueberry showed seasonality in visible and near-infrared spectral regions which was linked to occurrences of leaf growth, flowering, berrying, and leaf senescence. The seasonality of spectra differed between species due to different phenologies (evergreen vs. deciduous). Vegetation indices, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), moisture stress index (MSI), plant senescence reflectance index (PSRI), and red-edge inflection point (REIP2), showed characteristic seasonal trends. NDVI and PSRI were sensitive to the presence of flowers and berries of lingonberry, while with blueberry the effects were less evident. Off-nadir observations supported differentiating the dwarf shrub species from each other but showed little improvement for detection of flowers and berries. Lingonberry and blueberry can be identified by their spectral signatures if ground reference data are available over the entire growing season. The spectral data measured in this study are reposited in the publicly open SPECCHIO Spectral Information System.Vaccinium vitis-idaeaVaccinium myrtillus


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athos Agapiou

Subsurface targets can be detected from space-borne sensors via archaeological proxies, known in the literature as cropmarks. A topic that has been limited in its investigation in the past is the identification of the optimal spatial resolution of satellite sensors, which can better support image extraction of archaeological proxies, especially in areas with spectral heterogeneity. In this study, we investigated the optimal spatial resolution (OSR) for two different cases studies. OSR refers to the pixel size in which the local variance, of a given area of interest (e.g., archaeological proxy), is minimized, without losing key details necessary for adequate interpretation of the cropmarks. The first case study comprises of a simulated spectral dataset that aims to model a shallow buried archaeological target cultivated on top with barley crops, while the second case study considers an existing site in Cyprus, namely the archaeological site of “Nea Paphos”. The overall methodology adopted in the study is composed of five steps: firstly, we defined the area of interest (Step 1), then we selected the local mean-variance value as the optimization criterion of the OSR (Step 2), while in the next step (Step 3), we spatially aggregated (upscale) the initial spectral datasets for both case studies. In our investigation, the spectral range was limited to the visible and near-infrared part of the spectrum. Based on these findings, we determined the OSR (Step 4), and finally, we verified the results (Step 5). The OSR was estimated for each spectral band, namely the blue, green, red, and near-infrared bands, while the study was expanded to also include vegetation indices, such as the Simple Ratio (SR), the Atmospheric Resistance Vegetation Index (ARVI), and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The outcomes indicated that the OSR could minimize the local spectral variance, thus minimizing the spectral noise, and, consequently, better support image processing for the extraction of archaeological proxies in areas with high spectral heterogeneity.


Drones ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Stow ◽  
Caroline J. Nichol ◽  
Tom Wade ◽  
Jakob J. Assmann ◽  
Gillian Simpson ◽  
...  

Small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have allowed the mapping of vegetation at very high spatial resolution, but a lack of standardisation has led to uncertainties regarding data quality. For reflectance measurements and vegetation indices (Vis) to be comparable between sites and over time, careful flight planning and robust radiometric calibration procedures are required. Two sources of uncertainty that have received little attention until recently are illumination geometry and the effect of flying height. This study developed methods to quantify and visualise these effects in imagery from the Parrot Sequoia, a UAV-mounted multispectral sensor. Change in illumination geometry over one day (14 May 2018) had visible effects on both individual images and orthomosaics. Average near-infrared (NIR) reflectance and NDVI in regions of interest were slightly lower around solar noon, and the contrast between shadowed and well-illuminated areas increased over the day in all multispectral bands. Per-pixel differences in NDVI maps were spatially variable, and much larger than average differences in some areas. Results relating to flying height were inconclusive, though small increases in NIR reflectance with height were observed over a black sailcloth tarp. These results underline the need to consider illumination geometry when carrying out UAS vegetation surveys.


Author(s):  
M. Ustuner ◽  
F. B. Sanli ◽  
S. Abdikan ◽  
M. T. Esetlili ◽  
Y. Kurucu

Cutting-edge remote sensing technology has a significant role for managing the natural resources as well as the any other applications about the earth observation. Crop monitoring is the one of these applications since remote sensing provides us accurate, up-to-date and cost-effective information about the crop types at the different temporal and spatial resolution. In this study, the potential use of three different vegetation indices of RapidEye imagery on crop type classification as well as the effect of each indices on classification accuracy were investigated. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI), and the Normalized Difference Red Edge Index (NDRE) are the three vegetation indices used in this study since all of these incorporated the near-infrared (NIR) band. RapidEye imagery is highly demanded and preferred for agricultural and forestry applications since it has red-edge and NIR bands. The study area is located in Aegean region of Turkey. Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel was used here for the Support Vector Machines (SVMs) classification. Original bands of RapidEye imagery were excluded and classification was performed with only three vegetation indices. The contribution of each indices on image classification accuracy was also tested with single band classification. Highest classification accuracy of 87, 46 % was obtained using three vegetation indices. This obtained classification accuracy is higher than the classification accuracy of any dual-combination of these vegetation indices. Results demonstrate that NDRE has the highest contribution on classification accuracy compared to the other vegetation indices and the RapidEye imagery can get satisfactory results of classification accuracy without original bands.


Author(s):  
Dustin Dehm ◽  
Richard Becker ◽  
Alexandra Godre

Mapping short-term wetland vegetation and water storage changes is valuable for monitoring the biogeochemical processes of wetland systems. Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve is a dynamic freshwater estuary which experiences intermittent changes in water level over the course of a year. Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) are useful tools in monitoring changes as they are rapidly deployed, repeatable, and high-resolution. In this study, commercial quadcopters were paired with a red/green/near-infrared MAPIR Survey 3W camera to produce normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference water index (NDWI) maps to observe short-term changes at OWC. Orthomosaics were produced for flights on 8 days throughout 2018 and early 2019. The orthomosaics were calibrated to bottom-of-atmosphere reflectance using the Empirical Line Correction method, after which NDVI and NDWI maps were created. The NDVI maps allowed vegetation extent and density changes over time and for National Estuarine Reserve System (NERRS) Classification Codes to be applied to zones of interest. NDWI provided water extent at different water levels and when paired with LiDAR and bathymetric data yielded water volume and residence time estimates.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1830
Author(s):  
Yongqian Ding ◽  
Yizhuo Jiang ◽  
Hongfeng Yu ◽  
Chuanlei Yang ◽  
Xueni Wu ◽  
...  

A coefficient CW, which was defined as the ratio of NIR (near infrared) to the red reflected spectral response of the spectrometer, with a standard whiteboard as the measuring object, was introduced to establish a method for calculating height-independent vegetation indices (VIs). Two criteria for designing the spectrometer based on an active light source were proposed to keep CW constant. A designed spectrometer, which was equipped with an active light source, adopting 730 and 810 nm as the central wavelength of detection wavebands, was used to test the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI) in wheat fields with two nitrogen application rate levels (NARLs). Twenty test points were selected in each kind of field. Five measuring heights (65, 75, 85, 95, and 105 cm) were set for each test point. The mean and standard deviation of the coefficient of variation (CV) for NDVI in each test point were 3.85% and 1.39% respectively, the corresponding results for RVI were 2.93% and 1.09%. ANOVA showed the measured VIs possessed a significant ability to discriminate the NARLs and had no obvious correlation with the measurement heights. The experimental results verified the feasibility and validity of the method for measuring height-independent VIs.


Author(s):  
Thallita R. S. Mendes ◽  
Eder P. Miguel ◽  
Pedro G. A. Vasconcelos ◽  
Marco B. X. Valadão ◽  
Alba V. Rezende ◽  
...  

Assessing forest stands is crucial for managing and planning the use of these resources. Forest inventory is the instrument that provides information about the stand situation, which can be costly and time consuming. In order to facilitate and reduce the time spent obtaining these data, the main objective of this work was to evaluate the accuracy of volume and biomass estimates per unit area with data from remote sensing. Forty sample units were allocated and georeferenced, in which all trees with diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 5 cm were inventoried. Sequentially, the cubage was performed in order to obtain individual biomass, volume, and adjustment of the individual models. With data from georeferenced images of the study area, the vegetation indices MSAVI (Modified Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index) and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) were obtained. The volume and biomass estimation using remote sensing variables were carried out through the adjustment of sigmoidal models by regression analysis, which used a combination of the average values of the vegetation indices and the basal area of the plot/hectares as an independent variable. The fit statistics and the accuracy of the tested models presented consistent results to estimate forest production. The results showwd that indices derived from remote sensing techniques associated with forest variables information could accurately estimate the volume and biomass of Eucalyptus spp. plantations.


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