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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #368185
Research Project: Improving Agroecosystem Services by Measuring, Modeling, and Assessing Conservation Practices

Location: Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory

Title: Evaluation of incident light sensors on unmanned aircraft for calculation of spectral reflectance

Author
item Hunt Jr, Earle
item Stern, Alan

Submitted to: Remote Sensing
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/6/2019
Publication Date: 11/9/2019
Citation: Hunt, E.R., Stern, A.J. 2019. Evaluation of incident light sensors on unmanned aircraft for calculation of spectral reflectance. Remote Sensing. 11(22):2622. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11222622.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11222622

Interpretive Summary: Unmanned aircraft are being used by farmers for scouting, monitoring growth, and planning management operations. A recent advance in the use of unmanned aircraft for agriculture is the inclusion of up-looking sensors (also called incident-light, ambient-light, or irradiance sensors) for correction of airborne remote sensing data to vegetation reflectances. We compared Landsat satellite data and unmanned fixed-wing airplane data acquired with a down-looking multispectral sensor and an up-looking light sensor. Flying towards the sun resulted in higher reflectances compared to flying away from the sun. Flying at high altitudes (5900 feet) resulted in lower reflectances. Corrections for these two problems are not needed for stable multi-rotor helicopters flying at low altitudes, but may be needed in the future.

Technical Abstract: Unmanned aircraft are being used by farmers for scouting, monitoring growth, and planning management operations. A recent advance in the use of unmanned aircraft for agriculture is the inclusion of up-looking sensors (also called incident-light, ambient-light, or irradiance sensors) for correction of airborne remote sensing data to vegetation reflectances. We compared Landsat satellite data and unmanned fixed-wing airplane data acquired with a down-looking multispectral sensor and an up-looking light sensor. Flying towards the sun resulted in higher reflectances compared to flying away from the sun. Flying at high altitudes (5900 feet) resulted in lower reflectances. Corrections for these two problems are not needed for stable multi-rotor helicopters flying at low altitudes, but may be needed in the future.