Development of an airborne remote sensing system for crop pest management: system integration and verification.

Remote sensing is being used with Global Positioning Systems, Geographic Information Systems, and variable rate technology to ultimately help farmers maximize the economic and environmental benefits of crop pest management through precision agriculture. Airborne remote sensing is flexible and versatile because fields can be flown at variable altitude depending on the spatial resolution required. Although the use of airborne hyperspectral remote sensing in agricultural research and applications has been steadily increasing in the last decade, the airborne multispectral technique is still a good source of crop, soil, or ground cover information. The MS-4100 is a multispectral camera that produces and aligns images from different bands with a built-in prism. Data can be analyzed from the composite image or individual band images. The camera system evaluated herein uses a camera control system to physically compensate for roll, pitch, and yaw and maintain the camera at vertical nadir orientation. This article describes the automated airborne multi-spectral imaging system and image processing using sample imagery to demonstrate the capability and potential of the system for crop pest management.