Uavs for vegetation monitoring: Overview and recent scientific contributions

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This paper reviewed a set of twenty-one original and innovative papers included in a special issue on UAVs for vegetation monitoring, which proposed new methods and techniques applied to diverse agricultural and forestry scenarios. Three general categories were considered: (1) sensors and vegetation indices used, (2) technological goals pursued, and (3) agroforestry applications. Some investigations focused on issues related to UAV flight operations, spatial resolution requirements, and computation and data analytics, while others studied the ability of UAVs for characterizing relevant vegetation features (mainly canopy cover and crop height) or for detecting different plant/crop stressors, such as nutrient content/deficiencies, water needs, weeds, and diseases. The general goal was proposing UAV-based technological solutions for a better use of agricultural and forestry resources and more efficient production with relevant economic and environmental benefits.
This research was funded by the project AGL2017-83325-C4-1R of Agencia Española de Investigación (AEI) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER). The contribution of Dr. Shi and Dr. Maja were supported by the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station through the Hatch Act capacity funding program (Accession Number 1011130) and Project No. SC-1700543 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, respectively.