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Open AccessEditorial

Editorial for Special Issue: “Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing”

by Yingying Dong, Chenghai Yang, Giovanni Laneve and Wenjiang Huang

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(18), 4382; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15184382 - 6 Sep 2023

Viewed by 1528

Abstract

The development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has drawn increasing interest and started a novel area of research applications [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

Research

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26 pages, 7791 KB

Open AccessArticle

AERO: AI-Enabled Remote Sensing Observation with Onboard Edge Computing in UAVs

by Anis Koubaa, Adel Ammar, Mohamed Abdelkader, Yasser Alhabashi and Lahouari Ghouti

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(7), 1873; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15071873 - 31 Mar 2023

Cited by 38 | Viewed by 8331

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with computer vision capabilities have been widely utilized in several remote sensing applications, such as precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, and surveillance. However, the commercial usage of these UAVs in such applications is mostly performed manually, with humans being [...] Read more.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with computer vision capabilities have been widely utilized in several remote sensing applications, such as precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, and surveillance. However, the commercial usage of these UAVs in such applications is mostly performed manually, with humans being responsible for data observation or offline processing after data collection due to the lack of on board AI on edge. Other technical methods rely on the cloud computation offloading of AI applications, where inference is conducted on video streams, which can be unscalable and infeasible due to remote cloud servers’ limited connectivity and high latency. To overcome these issues, this paper presents a new approach to using edge computing in drones to enable the processing of extensive AI tasks onboard UAVs for remote sensing. We propose a cloud–edge hybrid system architecture where the edge is responsible for processing AI tasks and the cloud is responsible for data storage, manipulation, and visualization. We designed AERO, a UAV brain system with onboard AI capability using GPU-enabled edge devices. AERO is a novel multi-stage deep learning module that combines object detection (YOLOv4 and YOLOv7) and tracking (DeepSort) with TensorRT accelerators to capture objects of interest with high accuracy and transmit data to the cloud in real time without redundancy. AERO processes the detected objects over multiple consecutive frames to maximize detection accuracy. The experiments show a reduced false positive rate (0.7%), a low percentage of tracking identity switches (1.6%), and an average inference speed of 15.5 FPS on a Jetson Xavier AGX edge device. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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17 pages, 7792 KB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of Different Dimensional Spectral Indices for Estimating Nitrogen Content of Potato Plants over Multiple Growth Periods

by Yiguang Fan, Haikuan Feng, Jibo Yue, Yang Liu, Xiuliang Jin, Xingang Xu, Xiaoyu Song, Yanpeng Ma and Guijun Yang

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(3), 602; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15030602 - 19 Jan 2023

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3018

Abstract

The estimation of physicochemical crop parameters based on spectral indices depend strongly on planting year, cultivar, and growing period. Therefore, the efficient monitoring of crop growth and nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatment requires that we develop a generic spectral index that allows the rapid [...] Read more.

The estimation of physicochemical crop parameters based on spectral indices depend strongly on planting year, cultivar, and growing period. Therefore, the efficient monitoring of crop growth and nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatment requires that we develop a generic spectral index that allows the rapid assessment of the plant nitrogen content (PNC) of crops and that is independent of year, cultivar, and growing period. Thus, to obtain the best indicator for estimating potato PNC, herein, we provide an in-depth comparative analysis of the use of hyperspectral single-band reflectance and two- and three-band spectral indices of arbitrary bands for estimating potato PNC over several years and for different cultivars and growth periods. Potato field trials under different N treatments were conducted over the years 2018 and 2019. An unmanned aerial vehicle hyperspectral remote sensing platform was used to acquire canopy reflectance data at several key potato growth periods, and six spectral transformation techniques and 12 arbitrary band combinations were constructed. From these, optimal single-, two-, and three-dimensional spectral indices were selected. Finally, each optimal spectral index was used to estimate potato PNC under different scenarios and the results were systematically evaluated based on a correlation analysis and univariate linear modeling. The results show that, although the spectral transformation technique strengthens the correlation between spectral information and potato PNC, the PNC estimation model constructed based on single-band reflectance is of limited accuracy and stability. In contrast, the optimal three-band spectral index TBI 5 (530,734,514) performs optimally, with coefficients of determination of 0.67 and 0.65, root mean square errors of 0.39 and 0.39, and normalized root mean square errors of 12.64% and 12.17% for the calibration and validation datasets, respectively. The results thus provide a reference for the rapid and efficient monitoring of PNC in large potato fields. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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19 pages, 3028 KB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of Potato Above-Ground Biomass Using UAV-Based Hyperspectral images and Machine-Learning Regression

by Yang Liu, Haikuan Feng, Jibo Yue, Yiguang Fan, Xiuliang Jin, Yu Zhao, Xiaoyu Song, Huiling Long and Guijun Yang

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(21), 5449; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14215449 - 29 Oct 2022

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 3994

Abstract

Above-ground biomass (AGB) is an important indicator for monitoring crop growth and plays a vital role in guiding agricultural management, so it must be determined rapidly and nondestructively. The present study investigated the extraction from UAV hyperspectral images of multiple variables, including canopy [...] Read more.

Above-ground biomass (AGB) is an important indicator for monitoring crop growth and plays a vital role in guiding agricultural management, so it must be determined rapidly and nondestructively. The present study investigated the extraction from UAV hyperspectral images of multiple variables, including canopy original spectra (COS), first-derivative spectra (FDS), vegetation indices (VIs), and crop height (CH) to estimate the potato AGB via the machine-learning methods of support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and Gaussian process regression (GPR). High-density point clouds were combined with three-dimensional spatial information from ground control points by using structures from motion technology to generate a digital surface model (DSM) of the test field, following which CH was extracted based on the DSM. Feature bands in sensitive spectral regions of COS and FDS were automatically identified by using a Gaussian process regression-band analysis tool that analyzed the correlation of the COS and FDS with the AGB in each growth period. In addition, the 16 Vis were separately analyzed for correlation with the AGB of each growth period to identify highly correlated Vis and excluded highly autocorrelated variables. The three machine-learning methods were used to estimate the potato AGB at each growth period and their results were compared separately based on the COS, FDS, VIs, and combinations thereof with CH. The results showed that (i) the correlations of COS, FDS, and VIs with AGB all gradually improved when going from the tuber-formation stage to the tuber-growth stage and thereafter deteriorated. The VIs were most strongly correlated with the AGB, followed by FDS, and then by COS. (ii) The CH extracted from the DSM was consistent with the measured CH. (iii) For each growth stage, the accuracy of the AGB estimates produced by a given machine-learning method depended on the combination of model variables used (VIs, FDS, COS, and CH). (iv) For any given set of model variables, GPR produced the best AGB estimates in each growth period, followed by RF, and finally by SVM. (v) The most accurate AGB estimate was achieved in the tuber-growth stage and was produced by combining spectral information and CH and applying the GPR method. The results of this study thus reveal that UAV hyperspectral images can be used to extract CH and crop-canopy spectral information, which can be used with GPR to accurately estimate potato AGB and thereby accurately monitor crop growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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17 pages, 27382 KB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of Potato Above-Ground Biomass Based on Vegetation Indices and Green-Edge Parameters Obtained from UAVs

by Yang Liu, Haikuan Feng, Jibo Yue, Yiguang Fan, Xiuliang Jin, Xiaoyu Song, Hao Yang and Guijun Yang

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(21), 5323; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14215323 - 24 Oct 2022

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3173

Abstract

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important indicator to evaluate crop growth, which is closely related to yield and plays an important role in guiding fine agricultural management. Compared with traditional AGB measurements, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hyperspectral remote sensing technology has the advantages [...] Read more.

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important indicator to evaluate crop growth, which is closely related to yield and plays an important role in guiding fine agricultural management. Compared with traditional AGB measurements, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hyperspectral remote sensing technology has the advantages of being non-destructive, highly mobile, and highly efficient in precision agriculture. Therefore, this study uses a hyperspectral sensor carried by a UAV to obtain hyperspectral images of potatoes in stages of tuber formation, tuber growth, starch storage, and maturity. Linear regression, partial least squares regression (PLSR), and random forest (RF) based on vegetation indices (Vis), green-edge parameters (GEPs), and combinations thereof are used to evaluate the accuracy of potato AGB estimates in the four growth stages. The results show that (i) the selected VIs and optimal GEPs correlate significantly with AGB. Overall, VIs correlate more strongly with AGB than do GEPs. (ii) AGB estimates made by linear regression based on the optimal VIs, optimal GEPs, and combinations thereof gradually improve in going from the tuber-formation to the tuber-growth stage and then gradually worsen in going from the starch-storage to the maturity stage. Combining the optimal GEPs with the optimal VIs produces the best estimates, followed by using the optimal VIs alone, and using the optimal GEPs produces the worst estimates. (iii) Compared with the single-parameter model, which uses the PLSR and RF methods based on VIs, the combination of VIs with the optimal GEPs significantly improves the estimation accuracy, which gradually improves in going from the tuber-formation to the tuber-growth stage, and then gradually deteriorates in going from the starch-storage to the maturity stage. The combination of VIs with the optimal GEPs produces the most accurate estimates. (iv) The PLSR method is better than the RF method for estimating AGB in each growth period. Therefore, combining the optimal GEPs and VIs and using the PLSR method improves the accuracy of AGB estimates, thereby allowing for non-destructive dynamic monitoring of potato growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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20 pages, 6232 KB

Open AccessArticle

Building Extraction and Floor Area Estimation at the Village Level in Rural China Via a Comprehensive Method Integrating UAV Photogrammetry and the Novel EDSANet

by Jie Zhou, Yaohui Liu, Gaozhong Nie, Hao Cheng, Xinyue Yang, Xiaoxian Chen and Lutz Gross

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5175; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205175 - 16 Oct 2022

Cited by 30 | Viewed by 4132

Abstract

Dynamic monitoring of building environments is essential for observing rural land changes and socio-economic development, especially in agricultural countries, such as China. Rapid and accurate building extraction and floor area estimation at the village level are vital for the overall planning of rural [...] Read more.

Dynamic monitoring of building environments is essential for observing rural land changes and socio-economic development, especially in agricultural countries, such as China. Rapid and accurate building extraction and floor area estimation at the village level are vital for the overall planning of rural development and intensive land use and the “beautiful countryside” construction policy in China. Traditional in situ field surveys are an effective way to collect building information but are time-consuming and labor-intensive. Moreover, rural buildings are usually covered by vegetation and trees, leading to incomplete boundaries. This paper proposes a comprehensive method to perform village-level homestead area estimation by combining unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry and deep learning technology. First, to tackle the problem of complex surface feature scenes in remote sensing images, we proposed a novel Efficient Deep-wise Spatial Attention Network (EDSANet), which uses dual attention extraction and attention feature refinement to aggregate multi-level semantics and enhance the accuracy of building extraction, especially for high-spatial-resolution imagery. Qualitative and quantitative experiments were conducted with the newly built dataset (named the rural Weinan building dataset) with different deep learning networks to examine the performance of the EDSANet model in the task of rural building extraction. Then, the number of floors of each building was estimated using the normalized digital surface model (nDSM) generated from UAV oblique photogrammetry. The floor area of the entire village was rapidly calculated by multiplying the area of each building in the village by the number of floors. The case study was conducted in Helan village, Shannxi province, China. The results show that the overall accuracy of the building extraction from UAV images with the EDSANet model was 0.939 and that the precision reached 0.949. The buildings in Helan village primarily have two stories, and their total floor area is 3.1 × 10⁵ m². The field survey results verified that the accuracy of the nDSM model was 0.94; the RMSE was 0.243. The proposed workflow and experimental results highlight the potential of UAV oblique photogrammetry and deep learning for rapid and efficient village-level building extraction and floor area estimation in China, as well as worldwide. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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27 pages, 8030 KB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of Aboveground Biomass of Potatoes Based on Characteristic Variables Extracted from UAV Hyperspectral Imagery

by Yang Liu, Haikuan Feng, Jibo Yue, Zhenhai Li, Xiuliang Jin, Yiguang Fan, Zhihang Feng and Guijun Yang

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5121; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205121 - 13 Oct 2022

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 3147

Abstract

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important indicator for crop-growth monitoring and yield prediction, and accurate monitoring of AGB is beneficial to agricultural fertilization management and optimization of planting patterns. Imaging spectrometer sensors mounted on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote-sensing platforms have become an [...] Read more.

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important indicator for crop-growth monitoring and yield prediction, and accurate monitoring of AGB is beneficial to agricultural fertilization management and optimization of planting patterns. Imaging spectrometer sensors mounted on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote-sensing platforms have become an important technical method for monitoring AGB because the method is convenient, rapidly collects data and provides image data with high spatial and spectral resolution. To confirm the feasibility of UAV hyperspectral remote-sensing technology to estimate AGB, this study acquired hyperspectral images and measured AGB data over the potato bud, tuber formation, tuber growth, and starch-storage periods. The canopy spectrum obtained in each growth period was smoothed by using the Savitzky–Golay filtering method, and the spectral-reflection feature parameters, spectral-location feature parameters, and vegetation indexes were extracted. First, a Pearson correlation analysis was performed between the three types of characteristic spectral parameters and AGB, and the spectral parameters that reached a significant level of 0.01 in each growth period were selected. Next, the spectral parameters reaching a significance of 0.01 were optimized and screened by moving window partial least squares (MWPLS), Monte Carlo uninformative variable elimination (MC-UVE), and random frog (RF) methods, and the final model parameters were determined according to the thresholds of the root mean square error of cross-validation (RMSEcv), the reliability index, and the selected probability. Finally, the three optimal characteristic spectral parameters and their combinations were used to estimate the potato AGB in each growth period by combining the partial least squares regression (PLSR) and Gaussian process regression (GPR) methods. The results show that, (i) ranked from high to low, vegetation indexes, spectral-location feature parameters, and spectral-reflection feature parameters in each growth period are correlated with the AGB, and these correlations all first improve and then degrade in going from the budding period to the starch-storage period. (ii) The AGB estimation model based on the characteristic variables screened by the three methods in each growth period is most accurate with RF, less so with MC-UVE, and least accurate with MWPLS. (iii) Estimating the AGB with the same variables combined with the PLSR method in each growth period is more accurate than the corresponding GPR method, but the estimations produced by the two methods both show a trend of first improving and then worsening from the budding period to the starch-accumulation period. The accuracy of the estimation models constructed by PLSR and GPR from high to low is based on comprehensive variables, vegetation indexes, spectral-location feature parameters and spectral-reflection feature parameters. (iv) When combined with the RF-PLSR method to estimate AGB in each growth period, the best R² values are 0.65, 0.68, 0.72, and 0.67, the corresponding RMSE values are 167.76, 162.98, 160.77, and 169.24 kg/hm², and the corresponding NRMSE values are 19.76%, 16.01%, 15.04%, and 16.84%. The results of this study show that a variety of characteristic spectral parameters may be extracted from UAV hyperspectral images, that the RF method may be used for optimizing and screening, and that PLSR regression provides accurate estimates of the potato AGB. The proposed approach thus provides a rapid, accurate, and nondestructive way to monitor the growth status of potatoes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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21 pages, 2333 KB

Open AccessArticle

Occlusion and Deformation Handling Visual Tracking for UAV via Attention-Based Mask Generative Network

by Yashuo Bai, Yong Song, Yufei Zhao, Ya Zhou, Xiyan Wu, Yuxin He, Zishuo Zhang, Xin Yang and Qun Hao

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(19), 4756; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14194756 - 23 Sep 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2822

Abstract

Although the performance of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking has benefited from the successful application of discriminative correlation filters (DCF) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), UAV tracking under occlusion and deformation remains a challenge. The main dilemma is that challenging scenes, such as [...] Read more.

Although the performance of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking has benefited from the successful application of discriminative correlation filters (DCF) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), UAV tracking under occlusion and deformation remains a challenge. The main dilemma is that challenging scenes, such as occlusion or deformation, are very complex and changeable, making it difficult to obtain training data covering all situations, resulting in trained networks that may be confused by new contexts that differ from historical information. Data-driven strategies are the main direction of current solutions, but gathering large-scale datasets with object instances under various occlusion and deformation conditions is difficult and lacks diversity. This paper proposes an attention-based mask generation network (AMGN) for UAV-specific tracking, which combines the attention mechanism and adversarial learning to improve the tracker’s ability to handle occlusion and deformation. After the base CNN extracts the deep features of the candidate region, a series of masks are determined by the spatial attention module and sent to the generator, and the generator discards some features according to these masks to simulate the occlusion and deformation of the object, producing more hard positive samples. The discriminator seeks to distinguish these hard positive samples while guiding mask generation. Such adversarial learning can effectively complement occluded and deformable positive samples in the feature space, allowing to capture more robust features to distinguish objects from backgrounds. Comparative experiments show that our AMGN-based tracker achieves the highest area under curve (AUC) of 0.490 and 0.349, and the highest precision scores of 0.742 and 0.662, on the UAV123 tracking benchmark with partial and full occlusion attributes, respectively. It also achieves the highest AUC of 0.555 and the highest precision score of 0.797 on the DTB70 tracking benchmark with the deformation attribute. On the UAVDT tracking benchmark with the large occlusion attribute, it achieves the highest AUC of 0.407 and the highest precision score of 0.582. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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19 pages, 3958 KB

Open AccessArticle

Multiple Object Tracking of Drone Videos by a Temporal-Association Network with Separated-Tasks Structure

by Yeneng Lin, Mengmeng Wang, Wenzhou Chen, Wang Gao, Lei Li and Yong Liu

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(16), 3862; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14163862 - 9 Aug 2022

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4029

Abstract

The task of multi-object tracking via deep learning methods for UAV videos has become an important research direction. However, with some current multiple object tracking methods, the relationship between object detection and tracking is not well handled, and decisions on how to make [...] Read more.

The task of multi-object tracking via deep learning methods for UAV videos has become an important research direction. However, with some current multiple object tracking methods, the relationship between object detection and tracking is not well handled, and decisions on how to make good use of temporal information can affect tracking performance as well. To improve the performance of multi-object tracking, this paper proposes an improved multiple object tracking model based on FairMOT. The proposed model contains a structure to separate the detection and ReID heads to decrease the influence between every function head. Additionally, we develop a temporal embedding structure to strengthen the representational ability of the model. By combing the temporal-association structure and separating different function heads, the model’s performance in object detection and tracking tasks is improved, which has been verified on the VisDrone2019 dataset. Compared with the original method, the proposed model improves MOTA by 4.9% and MOTP by 1.2% and has better tracking performance than the models such as SORT and HDHNet on the UAV video dataset. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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22 pages, 6352 KB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of UAV RGB Imagery and Hyperspectral Remote-Sensing Data for Monitoring Winter Wheat Growth

by Haikuan Feng, Huilin Tao, Zhenhai Li, Guijun Yang and Chunjiang Zhao

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(15), 3811; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14153811 - 8 Aug 2022

Cited by 50 | Viewed by 5888

Abstract

Although crop-growth monitoring is important for agricultural managers, it has always been a difficult research topic. However, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with RGB and hyperspectral cameras can now acquire high-resolution remote-sensing images, which facilitates and accelerates such monitoring. To explore the effect [...] Read more.

Although crop-growth monitoring is important for agricultural managers, it has always been a difficult research topic. However, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with RGB and hyperspectral cameras can now acquire high-resolution remote-sensing images, which facilitates and accelerates such monitoring. To explore the effect of monitoring a single crop-growth indicator and multiple indicators, this study combines six growth indicators (plant nitrogen content, above-ground biomass, plant water content, chlorophyll, leaf area index, and plant height) into the new comprehensive growth index (CGI). We investigate the performance of RGB imagery and hyperspectral data for monitoring crop growth based on multi-time estimation of the CGI. The CGI is estimated from the vegetation indices based on UAV hyperspectral data treated by linear, nonlinear, and multiple linear regression (MLR), partial least squares (PLSR), and random forest (RF). The results are as follows: (1) The RGB-imagery indices red reflectance (r), the excess-red index (EXR), the vegetation atmospherically resistant index (VARI), and the modified green-red vegetation index (MGRVI), as well as the spectral indices consisting of the linear combination index (LCI), the modified simple ratio index (MSR), the simple ratio vegetation index (SR), and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), are more strongly correlated with the CGI than a single growth-monitoring indicator. (2) The CGI estimation model is constructed by comparing a single RGB-imagery index and a spectral index, and the optimal RGB-imagery index corresponding to each of the four growth stages in order is r, r, r, EXR; the optimal spectral index is LCI for all four growth stages. (3) The MLR, PLSR, and RF methods are used to estimate the CGI. The MLR method produces the best estimates. (4) Finally, the CGI is more accurately estimated using the UAV hyperspectral indices than using the RGB-image indices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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16 pages, 3581 KB

Open AccessArticle

Weakly Supervised Learning for Transmission Line Detection Using Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation

by Jiho Choi and Sang Jun Lee

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(14), 3421; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14143421 - 16 Jul 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2651

Abstract

To achieve full autonomy of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), obstacle detection and avoidance are indispensable parts of visual recognition systems. In particular, detecting transmission lines is an important topic due to the potential risk of accidents while operating at low altitude. Even though [...] Read more.

To achieve full autonomy of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), obstacle detection and avoidance are indispensable parts of visual recognition systems. In particular, detecting transmission lines is an important topic due to the potential risk of accidents while operating at low altitude. Even though many studies have been conducted to detect transmission lines, there still remains many challenges due to their thin shapes in diverse backgrounds. Moreover, most previous methods require a significant level of human involvement to generate pixel-level ground truth data. In this paper, we propose a transmission line detection algorithm based on weakly supervised learning and unpaired image-to-image translation. The proposed algorithm only requires image-level labels, and a novel attention module, which is called parallel dilated attention (PDA), improves the detection accuracy by recalibrating channel importance based on the information from various receptive fields. Finally, we construct a refinement network based on unpaired image-to-image translation in order that the prediction map is guided to detect line-shaped objects. The proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art method by 2.74% in terms of F1-score, and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective for detecting transmission lines in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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20 pages, 9467 KB

Open AccessArticle

A Method for Designated Target Anti-Interference Tracking Combining YOLOv5 and SiamRPN for UAV Tracking and Landing Control

by Dong Wu, Hang Zhu and Yubin Lan

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(12), 2825; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14122825 - 12 Jun 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3534

Abstract

With the rapid development in the field of computer vision, the vision-based approach to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking and landing technology in weak global positioning system (GPS) or GPS-free environments has become prominent in military and civilian missions. However, this technique still [...] Read more.

With the rapid development in the field of computer vision, the vision-based approach to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking and landing technology in weak global positioning system (GPS) or GPS-free environments has become prominent in military and civilian missions. However, this technique still suffers from problems such as interference by similar targets in the environment, low tracking accuracy, slow processing speed, and poor stability. To solve these problems, we propose the designated target anti-interference tracking (DTAT) method, which integrates YOLOv5 and SiamRPN, and built a system to achieve UAV tracking and the landing of a designated target in an environment with multiple interference targets. The system consists of the following parts: first, an image is acquired by a monocular camera to obtain the pixel position information of the designated target. Next, the position of the UAV relative to the target is estimated based on the pixel location information of the target and the known target size information. Finally, the discrete proportion integration differentiation (PID) control law is used to complete the target tracking and landing task of the UAV. To test the system performance, we deployed it on a robot operating system (ROS) platform, conducted many simulation experiments, and observed the real-time trajectories of the UAV and the target through Gazebo software. The results show that the relative distance between the UAV and the target during the tracking process when the target was moving at 0.6 m/s does not exceed 0.8 m, and the landing error of the UAV during the landing process after the target is stationary does not exceed 0.01 m. The results validate the effectiveness and robustness of the system and lay a foundation for subsequent research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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14 pages, 2283 KB

Open AccessArticle

Combining Disease Mechanism and Machine Learning to Predict Wheat Fusarium Head Blight

by Lu Li, Yingying Dong, Yingxin Xiao, Linyi Liu, Xing Zhao and Wenjiang Huang

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(12), 2732; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14122732 - 7 Jun 2022

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3326

Abstract

Wheat Fusarium head blight (FHB) can be effectively controlled through prediction. To address the low accuracy and poor stability of model predictions of wheat FHB, a prediction method of wheat FHB that couples a logistic regression mechanism-based model and k-nearest neighbours (KNN) model [...] Read more.

Wheat Fusarium head blight (FHB) can be effectively controlled through prediction. To address the low accuracy and poor stability of model predictions of wheat FHB, a prediction method of wheat FHB that couples a logistic regression mechanism-based model and k-nearest neighbours (KNN) model is proposed in this paper. First, we selected predictive factors, including remote sensing-based and meteorological factors. Then, we quantitatively expressed the factor weights of the disease occurrence and development mechanisms in the disease prediction model by using a logistic model. Subsequently, we integrated the obtained factor weights into the predictive factors and input the predictive factors with weights into the KNN model to predict the incidence of wheat FHB. Finally, the accuracy and generalizability of the models were evaluated. Wheat fields in Changfeng, Dingyuan, Fengyuan, and Feidong counties, Anhui Province, where wheat FHB often occurs, were used as the study area. The incidences of wheat FHB on 29 April and 10 May 2021 were predicted. Compared with a model that did not consider disease mechanism, the accuracy of our model increased by approximately 13%. The overall accuracies of the models for the two dates were 0.88 and 0.92, and the F1 index was 0.86 and 0.94, respectively. The results show that the predictions made with the logistic-KNN model had higher accuracy and better stability than those made with the KNN model, thus achieving remote sensing-based high-precision prediction of wheat FHB. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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22 pages, 4212 KB

Open AccessArticle

Maize Canopy and Leaf Chlorophyll Content Assessment from Leaf Spectral Reflectance: Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis across Growth Stages and Vertical Distribution

by Hongye Yang, Bo Ming, Chenwei Nie, Beibei Xue, Jiangfeng Xin, Xingli Lu, Jun Xue, Peng Hou, Ruizhi Xie, Keru Wang and Shaokun Li

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(9), 2115; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14092115 - 28 Apr 2022

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 6180

Abstract

Accurate estimation of the canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) plays a key role in quantitative remote sensing. Maize (Zea mays L.) is a high-stalk crop with a large leaf area and deep canopy. It has a non-uniform vertical distribution of the leaf chlorophyll [...] Read more.

Accurate estimation of the canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) plays a key role in quantitative remote sensing. Maize (Zea mays L.) is a high-stalk crop with a large leaf area and deep canopy. It has a non-uniform vertical distribution of the leaf chlorophyll content (LCC), which limits remote sensing of CCC. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the vertical heterogeneity of LCC and leaf reflectance spectra to improve the accuracy of CCC monitoring. In this study, CCC, LCC, and leaf spectral reflectance were measured during two consecutive field growing seasons under five nitrogen treatments. The vertical LCC profile showed an asymmetric ‘bell-shaped’ curve structure and was affected by nitrogen application. The leaf reflectance also varied greatly between spatio–temporal conditions, which could indicate the influence of vertical heterogeneity. In the early growth stage, the spectral differences between leaf positions were mainly concentrated in the red-edge (RE) and near-infrared (NIR) regions, whereas differences were concentrated in the visible region during the mid-late filling stage. LCC had a strong linear correlation with vegetation indices (VIs), such as the modified red-edge ratio (mRER, R² = 0.87), but the VI–chlorophyll models showed significant inversion errors throughout the growth season, especially at the early vegetative growth stage and the late filling stage (rRMSE values ranged from 36% to 87.4%). The vertical distribution of LCC had a strong correlation with the total chlorophyll in canopy, and sensitive leaf positions were identified with a multiple stepwise regression (MSR) model. The LCC of leaf positions L6 in the vegetative stage (R²-adj = 0.9) and L11 + L14 in the reproductive stage (R²-adj = 0.93) could be used to evaluate the canopy chlorophyll status (L12 represents the ear leaf). With a strong relationship between leaf spectral reflectance and LCC, CCC can be estimated directly by leaf spectral reflectance (mRER, rRMSE = 8.97%). Therefore, the spatio–temporal variations of LCC and leaf spectral reflectance were analyzed, and a higher accuracy CCC estimation approach that can avoid the effects of the leaf area was proposed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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23 pages, 9854 KB

Open AccessArticle

Wide-Area and Real-Time Object Search System of UAV

by Xianjiang Li, Boyong He, Kaiwen Ding, Weijie Guo, Bo Huang and Liaoni Wu

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(5), 1234; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14051234 - 2 Mar 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4841

Abstract

The method of collecting aerial images or videos by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for object search has the advantages of high flexibility and low cost, and has been widely used in various fields, such as pipeline inspection, disaster rescue, and forest fire prevention. [...] Read more.

The method of collecting aerial images or videos by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for object search has the advantages of high flexibility and low cost, and has been widely used in various fields, such as pipeline inspection, disaster rescue, and forest fire prevention. However, in the case of object search in a wide area, the scanning efficiency and real-time performance of UAV are often difficult to satisfy at the same time, which may lead to missing the best time to perform the task. In this paper, we design a wide-area and real-time object search system of UAV based on deep learning for this problem. The system first solves the problem of area scanning efficiency by controlling the high-resolution camera in order to collect aerial images with a large field of view. For real-time requirements, we adopted three strategies to accelerate the system, as follows: design a parallel system, simplify the object detection algorithm, and use TensorRT on the edge device to optimize the object detection model. We selected the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier edge device as the central processor and verified the feasibility and practicability of the system through the actual application of suspicious vehicle search in the grazing area of the prairie. Experiments have proved that the parallel design of the system can effectively meet the real-time requirements. For the most time-consuming image object detection link, with a slight loss of precision, most algorithms can reach the 400% inference speed of the benchmark in total, after algorithm simplification, and corresponding model’s deployment by TensorRT. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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15 pages, 2729 KB

Open AccessCommunication

Remote Sensing Monitoring of Winter Wheat Stripe Rust Based on mRMR-XGBoost Algorithm

by Xia Jing, Qin Zou, Jumei Yan, Yingying Dong and Bingyu Li

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(3), 756; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14030756 - 6 Feb 2022

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 4241

Abstract

For the problem of multi-dimensional feature redundancy in remote sensing detection of wheat stripe rust using reflectance spectrum and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), a feature selection and disease index (DI) monitoring model combining mRMR and XGBoost algorithm was proposed in this study. Firstly, [...] Read more.

For the problem of multi-dimensional feature redundancy in remote sensing detection of wheat stripe rust using reflectance spectrum and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), a feature selection and disease index (DI) monitoring model combining mRMR and XGBoost algorithm was proposed in this study. Firstly, characteristic wavelengths selected by successive projections algorithm (SPA) were combined with the vegetation indices, trilateral parameters, and canopy SIF parameters to constitute the initial feature set. Then, the max-relevance and min-redundancy (mRMR) algorithm and correlation coefficient (CC) analysis were used to reduce the dimensionality of the initial feature set, respectively. Features selected by mRMR and CC were input as independent variables into the extreme gradient boosting regression (XGBoost) and gradient boosting regression tree (GBRT) to monitor the severity of stripe rust. The experimental results show that, compared with CC analysis, the monitoring accuracy of the features selected by mRMR in the XGBoost and GBRT models increased by 12% and 17% on average, respectively. Meanwhile, the mRMR-XGBoost model achieved the best monitoring accuracy (R² = 0.8894, RMSE = 0.1135). The R² between the measured DI and predicted DI of mRMR-XGBoost was improved by an average of 5%, 12%, and 22% compared with mRMR-GBRT, CC-XGBoost, and CC-GBRT models. These results suggested that XGBoost is more suitable for the remote sensing monitoring of wheat stripe rust, and mRMR has more advantages than the commonly used CC analysis in feature selection. Field survey data validation results also confirm that the mRMR-XGBoost algorithm has excellent monitoring applicability and scalability. The proposed model could provide a reference for data dimensionality reduction and crop disease index monitoring based on hyperspectral data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in UAV-AI Remote Sensing)

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