Since the beginning of this year's vegetation period, grassland stands at the HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein plant cultivation experimental field have been regularly observed using an autonomously flying drone and a multispectral sensor.
The team in the grassland management department has set itself the goal of automating this process as much as possible while simultaneously achieving high-quality data and efficient observation. To this end, flight routes for each trial are predefined using a computer planning tool and then directly transferred to the drone. A GPS ground station with centimeter-level accuracy is used to improve drone control and image positional accuracy.
The drone then takes off in autonomous flight mode without pilot intervention, flies to the predefined waypoints at a defined altitude, and takes several hundred pictures along the way. Afterwards, the drone lands autonomously.
Back in the office, the individual multispectral images are combined into a single image using image processing software. This allows for a high-resolution mapping of an entire experimental area, revealing information on vitality, fertilization status, biomass, forage quality, and the effects of stressors such as drought or disease pressure.
