Preharvest Monitoring of Biomass Production - Engineering and Science of Biomass Feedstock Production and Provision - page 62

Fig. 4.2 NDVI concept for vigor variation quantifi cation

the crop at a spatial scale less than that of the entire fi eld. Precision agriculture is the
use of information technology to achieve SSCM. Remote sensing is an effi cient way
of mapping and monitoring the crop and soil variability as well as the effects of any
condition that affects health, yield, or quality of a crop. The imagery can be applied
to monitor within/between fi eld variability, map soil variations, investigate crop
management practices, detect and map weed and pest infestations, optimize crop
inputs, and pasture growth rate. As illustrated in Fig. 4.3 , a typical example of
remote sensing technology application is that the NDVI map was considered as the
basis to generate prescription map for variable-rate fertilizer application combined
with the historical yield map and then resulted in an improved yield [ 23 ].

4.3 R emote S ensing P latforms

Remote sensing data acquisition can be conducted on such platforms as aircraft,
satellites, balloons, rockets, and space shuttles. Inside or onboard these platforms,
we use sensors to collect data. Sensors include aerial photographic cameras and non-
photographic instruments, such as radiometers, electro-optical scanners, and radar
systems. There are mainly three types of platform used for remote sensing [ 17 ]:

1. Satellite remote sensing
2. Airborne remote sensing
3. Near-real-time remote sensing