White paper: Detection of crop properties using hyperspectral remote sensing

Human eye and digital cameras use 3 bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, so called channels or colors — red, green and blue (RGB). Hyperspectral sensors use a large number of narrow bands across the spectrum. The reflective properties of an object leave unique ‘fingerprints’ that can be captured by hyperspectral cameras. Known as spectral signatures, these ‘fingerprints’ deliver very detailed information about the material state and constitution of the imaged object. Hyperspectral imaging considerably improves the identification and classification of objects and is today recognized as a key enabling technology for next-generation agricultural, environmental, mineralogy and medical applications.

Hyperspectral imaging technology have numerous applications across multiple commercial domains including precision agriculture, medical imaging, microscopy, mineralogy, environmental monitoring, optical sorting, food inspection, surveillance and many others. Agriculture and precision farming is the largest current commercial segment for hyperspectral imaging technology. The development of analytical services for each particular crop in each region and each crop issue requires substantial resources, including agronomy sampling and ground-truthing.

Gamaya have developed unique patented ultra compact hyperspectral imaging camera, that has 40 spectral channels and provides access to a wealth of crop information, that can significantly enhance agricultural operations. In partnership with Institute of Agricultural Sciences of ETH Zurich we have worked to analyze different crop properties, such as leaf nitrogen, chlorophyll, canopy cover, etc., by means of hyperspectral remote sensing from a micro UAV (drone). White paper about this research has been published and presented by Gamaya at the 9th EARSeL SIG Imaging Spectroscopy workshop in Luxembourg in 2015. You can download a white paper about hyperspectral remote sensing of vegetation here.