UAV hyperspectral image acquisition and processing, an application for nutrient estimation of rice in Vietnam

Hyperspectral imagery obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is increasingly employed to investigate nutrient concentrations in vegetation. The deployment of a hyperspectral camera on a UAV, flight planning, image acquisition, preprocessing of hyperspectral data, and the subsequent estimation of nutrient concentrations in vegetation are facing challenges. These challenges manifest as geometric, spectral distortions, and the abundance of numerous spectral bands. This study seeks to guide on mitigating the impact of issues encountered during an experiment to estimate nutrient concentrations in rice leaves using UAV hyperspectral images. An industrial hexagonal drone equipped with a push-broom hyperspectral camera featuring 122 bands within the Visible to Near-Infrared (VIS-NIR) wavelength range (400-960 nm) is employed to collect data over a 1-hectare testing rice field. Models for estimating Leaf Phosphorus Concentration (LPC) and Leaf Potassium Concentration (LKC) are developed based on the correlation between hyperspectral images, characterized by a 3 cm spatial resolution, and 162 LPC and 162 LKC reference data points. Utilizing various vegetation indices for LPC and LKC estimation, the outcomes reveal that a combination of band wavelengths at 838 nm and 734 nm is effective for LPC estimation, yielding a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 27.1%. Conversely, LKC estimation exhibits an RMSE of 38.8% with an insignificant correlation between LKC and the current wavelength ranges. Above all, this study is a primary example of the utilization of UAV hyperspectral data in precision agriculture in Vietnam.