Maize is a globally important cereal and fodder crop. Accurate monitoring of maize planting densities is vital for informed decision-making by agricultural managers. Compared to traditional manual methods for collecting crop trait parameters, approaches using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing can enhance the efficiency, minimize personnel costs and biases, and, more importantly, rapidly provide density maps of maize fields. This study involved the following steps: (1) Two UAV remote sensing-based methods were developed for monitoring maize planting densities. These methods are based on (a) ultrahigh-definition imagery combined with object detection (UHDI-OD) and (b) multispectral remote sensing combined with machine learning (Multi-ML) for the monitoring of maize planting densities. (2) The maize planting density measurements, UAV ultrahigh-definition imagery, and multispectral imagery collection were implemented at a maize breeding trial site. Experimental testing and validation were conducted using the proposed maize planting density monitoring methods. (3) An in-depth analysis of the applicability and limitations of both methods was conducted to explore the advantages and disadvantages of the two estimation models. The study revealed the following findings: (1) UHDI-OD can provide highly accurate estimation results for maize densities (R2 = 0.99, RMSE = 0.09 plants/m2). (2) Multi-ML provides accurate maize density estimation results by combining remote sensing vegetation indices (VIs) and gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) texture features (R2 = 0.76, RMSE = 0.67 plants/m2). (3) UHDI-OD exhibits a high sensitivity to image resolution, making it unsuitable for use with UAV remote sensing images with pixel sizes greater than 2 cm. In contrast, Multi-ML is insensitive to image resolution and the model accuracy gradually decreases as the resolution decreases.
Mapping Maize Planting Densities Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Multispectral Remote Sensing, and Deep Learning Technology
2024
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
Metadata by DOAJ is licensed under CC BY-SA 1.0
Agricultural multispectral remote sensing observation unmanned aerial vehicle
European Patent Office | 2022
|Multispectral remote sensing system of multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle
European Patent Office | 2020
|Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based Agricultural Remote Sensing Multispectral Image Processing Methods
Trans Tech Publications | 2014
|Hanging equipment for acquiring multispectral remote sensing image of unmanned aerial vehicle
European Patent Office | 2023
|Light and small unmanned aerial vehicle multispectral remote sensing image acquisition device
European Patent Office | 2020
|