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Agricultural Aircraft Offer a Different View of Remote Sensing
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Short Description: es obtained by, general aviation aircraft. “An advantage of agricultural aircraft .... Agricultural aircraft can be flown much. lower than larger planes. ...
Content Inside: Agricultural Aircraft Offer a Different View of Remote Sensing ometimes the solution to a prob- and the effects of our activities over the lem is in one's own backyard. past 30 years," says Mark A. Weltz, ARS S For agricultural engineer Steven national program leader for watershed (D030-18) J. Thomson, readily available and remote sensing research. "But we're USMUS agricultural airplanes provided a solution still learning how to extract the vast A to the need for high-resolution images as amount of information that's available part of remote sensing techniques for the and apply it to agricultural systems in STEPHEN Mississippi Delta. cost-effective ways." Pilot David Poythress activates the cameras Thomson, located in the ARS Ap- Thomson fi rst developed the method to located in the belly of an agricultural aircraft with a remote control strapped to plication and Production Technology collect fi eld images as part of a practice his leg. ARS engineers also installed a video Research Unit in Stoneville, Mississippi, known as precision agriculture. The idea monitor in the cockpit to orient the pilot is applying remote sensing technology is to determine which areas of a fi eld over the fi eld. using agricultural aircraft to projects as require more attention by growers of cot- diverse as managing crop water stress, ton, soybeans, corn, and other crops. This controlling invasive imported fi re ants, helps growers save on input costs, such as a substitute for, or to supplement imag- and producing catfi sh. as fertilizer and pesticide, and reduces the es obtained by, general aviation aircraft. "Remote sensing has opened a new amount of pollutants that could poten- "An advantage of agricultural aircraft window on our understanding of the tially run off into the environment. is that they're much easier to schedule for Earth, its climate and natural resources, Thomson would like to use this system frequent remote sensing because they're used in the fi eld for spray operations any- way. The imaging system essentially gets STEPHEN AUSMUS (D029-17) a free ride. The setup includes an ergo- nomic control to allow for easy operation by the pilot with minimal distraction." A slide-mounted box, approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, houses the camera, he says. The new system is being studied for several applications, such as detec ting weeds in cotton and soybean fields using digital video and spotting nutrient or water stress in crops using thermal imaging. The researchers confi gured and mount- ed standard digital video, multispectral, and thermal-imaging cameras on the aircraft. The cameras give scientists the ability to "see" refl ected and thermally Agricultural emitted electromagnetic waves not other- engineer Steven Thomson wise visible to the human eye, according (lower left) and to Thomson. engineering The plane can also be equipped with technician Roger digital still cameras, which can have Bright (lower right) check higher resolution than video cameras. A installation of the computer program uses a Global Posi- camera system as tioning System (GPS) to determine when ARS pilot David the plane passes over a desired area of Poythress checks the video monitors the fi eld and activates the camera's shut- in the cockpit. ter. The slight lag time that occurs with digital camera shutters is accounted for in the program. 20 Agricultural Research/March 2005 370008.indd 370008.indd 20 2/17/05 2/17/05 2:28:17 PM
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