ODIS - On Demand Imagery Solutions

Near Infrared Research

ODIS is currently developing research projects involving the use of our CropCam based UAV to evaluate and develop techniques. The first of these projects involves the use of the NIR version in monitoring vegetation in a national park. The second involves the collection of NIR imagery for potatoe fields allong with the collectino of ground truth information to help determine NIR imageries effectiveness for identifing stress in irrigated crops. In addition ODIS is quite active in presenting at professional conferences and submitting papers on the civilian use of UAV's to peer reviewed publications.

Near infrared (NIR) imagery is used for vegetation measurement due to the fact that plant cell structures are very good and reflecting that portion of the electromagentic spectrum, approximately 750 - 1200 nanometer wavelengths. In contrast plants high vegetation absorb a high of solar radiation in the visible portion of the spectrum which they use as a source of energy in the photosynthesis process amount of the red portion of the spectrum, approximately 630 - 690 nanometer wavelengths. This difference in the NIR refelction and the red absorption is the basis the development of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).

The development of the NDVI dates back to 1973 when Dr. John Rouse commented on its use in his paper entitled "Monitoring vegetation systems in the Great Planes with ERTS". NDVI's are calculated by divided the difference of the NIR to the Red by their sum. Calculated NDVI's range in value from 1 for complete vegetation which is very unlikely, to -1 for snow and ice. Normal values range from 0.72 for high vegetation to 0.14 for little to no vegetation.

ODIS is currently working on validating an imaging system which is light even and still affords the resolution needed to be effective in acuquiring high resolution NIR imagery from the CropCam UAV. The validation process will be two fold. First the NIR energy measured but the imagaging system will be compared to the readings given of the same area using a spectral radiometer. Secondly the NIR camera will be flowen with a second unmodified camera which will collect tradional color imagery. The two images will then be merged into one four channel and results ground truthed.