Aerial remote sensing in agriculture: A practical approach to area coverage and path planning for fleets of mini aerial robots

TLDR

The paper presents a system that enables precision agriculture by deploying a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles. The system captures georeferenced images, automatically partitions tasks through inter‑UAV negotiation, plans optimal flight paths, and uses a robust control law to improve quadrotor maneuverability. Field experiments validate the integrated tool, showing effective task negotiation, optimal path planning, and robust control performance under varying weather conditions. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, a system that allows applying precision agriculture techniques is described. The application is based on the deployment of a team of unmanned aerial vehicles that are able to take georeferenced pictures in order to create a full map by applying mosaicking procedures for postprocessing. The main contribution of this work is practical experimentation with an integrated tool. Contributions in different fields are also reported. Among them is a new one‐phase automatic task partitioning manager, which is based on negotiation among the aerial vehicles, considering their state and capabilities. Once the individual tasks are assigned, an optimal path planning algorithm is in charge of determining the best path for each vehicle to follow. Also, a robust flight control based on the use of a control law that improves the maneuverability of the quadrotors has been designed. A set of field tests was performed in order to analyze all the capabilities of the system, from task negotiations to final performance. These experiments also allowed testing control robustness under different weather conditions. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.