A pair of Ocean Optics miniature spectrometers – one flown on a UAS and a second deployed in a ground unit – are helping plant scientists to monitor barley and sugar beet crops by providing hyperspectral measurements.
According to the Florida-based spectroscopy company, its lightweight STS model has flown initial experiments at altitudes of up to 200 meters. The airborne unit gathers high-resolution reflectance spectra, with irradiance monitored by the ground unit.
According to team leader Andreas Burkart, from the Research Center Jülich in Germany, collecting hyperspectral data by conventional field spectroscopy is a time-consuming task and is usually restricted to easily accessible areas.
In stark contrast, the UAS-deployed spectrometer is able to deliver fast and reproducible measurements over any terrain, whether farmland, forest or marsh. By measuring various segments across a section of the New Zealand pastureland, the system has been able to assess specific plots with live vegetation.
The lightweight nature of the tool is critical: employing a CMOS light sensor, the STS spectrometer measures just 40 mm x 42 mm, and weighs only 68 grams. Despite those tiny dimensions, Ocean says that it can provide full spectral analysis with low stray light, a high signal-to-noise ratio and excellent optical resolution.
Ocean claims: “For the application described here, the researchers were able to match the performance of the STS to that of a larger, more expensive commercially available field portable spectrometer, with optical resolution of approximately 2.5 nm (full-width, half-maximum).”
The tiny spectrometer is available in two wavelength ranges, in the form of visible (350-800 nm) and near-infrared (650-1100 nm) options, with Ocean saying that it is particularly suited to high-intensity applications such as LED characterization and absorbance or transmission measurements.
Photo: Miniature STS spectrometers weighing 68 grams mounted on OctoCopter – Ocean Optics.
- See more at: http://www.uasvision.com/2013/07/10/uas-mounted-spectrometers-monitor-barley-suger-beet-crops-in-new-zealand/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UasVision+%28UAS+VISION%29#sthash.BNNr9GTz.dpuf
Spiri Is A Programmable Quadcopter That Lets Developers Focus On Building Airborne Apps
A pair of Ocean Optics miniature spectrometers – one flown on a UAS and a second deployed in a ground unit – are helping plant scientists to monitor barley and sugar beet crops by providing hyperspectral measurements.
According to the Florida-based spectroscopy company, its lightweight STS model has flown initial experiments at altitudes of up to 200 meters. The airborne unit gathers high-resolution reflectance spectra, with irradiance monitored by the ground unit.
According to team leader Andreas Burkart, from the Research Center Jülich in Germany, collecting hyperspectral data by conventional field spectroscopy is a time-consuming task and is usually restricted to easily accessible areas.
In stark contrast, the UAS-deployed spectrometer is able to deliver fast and reproducible measurements over any terrain, whether farmland, forest or marsh. By measuring various segments across a section of the New Zealand pastureland, the system has been able to assess specific plots with live vegetation.
The lightweight nature of the tool is critical: employing a CMOS light sensor, the STS spectrometer measures just 40 mm x 42 mm, and weighs only 68 grams. Despite those tiny dimensions, Ocean says that it can provide full spectral analysis with low stray light, a high signal-to-noise ratio and excellent optical resolution.
Ocean claims: “For the application described here, the researchers were able to match the performance of the STS to that of a larger, more expensive commercially available field portable spectrometer, with optical resolution of approximately 2.5 nm (full-width, half-maximum).”
The tiny spectrometer is available in two wavelength ranges, in the form of visible (350-800 nm) and near-infrared (650-1100 nm) options, with Ocean saying that it is particularly suited to high-intensity applications such as LED characterization and absorbance or transmission measurements.
Photo: Miniature STS spectrometers weighing 68 grams mounted on OctoCopter – Ocean Optics.
- See more at: http://www.uasvision.com/2013/07/10/uas-mounted-spectrometers-monitor-barley-suger-beet-crops-in-new-zealand/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UasVision+%28UAS+VISION%29#sthash.BNNr9GTz.dpuf
According to the Florida-based spectroscopy company, its lightweight STS model has flown initial experiments at altitudes of up to 200 meters. The airborne unit gathers high-resolution reflectance spectra, with irradiance monitored by the ground unit.
According to team leader Andreas Burkart, from the Research Center Jülich in Germany, collecting hyperspectral data by conventional field spectroscopy is a time-consuming task and is usually restricted to easily accessible areas.
In stark contrast, the UAS-deployed spectrometer is able to deliver fast and reproducible measurements over any terrain, whether farmland, forest or marsh. By measuring various segments across a section of the New Zealand pastureland, the system has been able to assess specific plots with live vegetation.
The lightweight nature of the tool is critical: employing a CMOS light sensor, the STS spectrometer measures just 40 mm x 42 mm, and weighs only 68 grams. Despite those tiny dimensions, Ocean says that it can provide full spectral analysis with low stray light, a high signal-to-noise ratio and excellent optical resolution.
Ocean claims: “For the application described here, the researchers were able to match the performance of the STS to that of a larger, more expensive commercially available field portable spectrometer, with optical resolution of approximately 2.5 nm (full-width, half-maximum).”
The tiny spectrometer is available in two wavelength ranges, in the form of visible (350-800 nm) and near-infrared (650-1100 nm) options, with Ocean saying that it is particularly suited to high-intensity applications such as LED characterization and absorbance or transmission measurements.
Photo: Miniature STS spectrometers weighing 68 grams mounted on OctoCopter – Ocean Optics.
- See more at: http://www.uasvision.com/2013/07/10/uas-mounted-spectrometers-monitor-barley-suger-beet-crops-in-new-zealand/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UasVision+%28UAS+VISION%29#sthash.BNNr9GTz.dpuf
If you’re hankering to hurry up a Half Life-style future of eye-in-the-sky scanners keeping tabs on the comings and goings of human meat-bags you’re going to need a decent quadcopter to carry your dystopic dreams. Enter Spiri, a programmable quadcopter that’s been designed as a platform for airborne app creation. It’s also autonomous, meaning you don’t have to have mad piloting skills yourself just to test whether your neighbour spy app works. And even if your neighbour gets annoyed and throws a rock at it, Spiri can take a few knocks (thanks to reinforced carbon fiber ribbon protecting its body/blades).
The Linux-based quadcopter comes stuffed with sensors, cameras, wi-fi — i.e. the sorts of things you might want to power your apps — plus cloud support and development tools. One advantage of using Spiri vs a less developer-friendly quadcopter is that devs don’t have to worry about controlling and correcting its flight (which is powered by a separate processor) — that side is taken care of, say its creators. So you can concentrate on honing your computer vision algorithms to peek into Mr Trilby’s garden shed.
Spiri’s Canada-based creators are hoping to build a community of developers around the device, so have an API and are developing an app platform for distributing apps:
Our API and library of flight primitives and other basic commands allow developers to work on top of the main chip, which runs Ubuntu Linux with ROS (Robot Operating System). This is an open source platform supported by an active community of hobbyists, engineers and scientists. We are designing a simple script-calling environment for end use, as well as a native programming environment for app development. The Spiri Applications Platform, also under development, will give developers a way to get their apps out to the wider Spiri user base.
The quadcoptor’s main processor, which will run your apps, is a 1Ghz dual-core ARM Cortex A-9, giving this gizmo roughly as much power as a mid-range Android smartphone. Airborne apps that might make sense for Spiri could include urban mapping or building maintenance use-cases, say it’s creators. But really thinking up the cool software stuff is where you guys come in.
Spiri’s makers are seeking to raise $125,000 via Kickstarter campaign to get this gizmo off the ground. One Spiri quadcopter can be yours if you pledge $520 — but the full dev kit plus Spiri package costs from $575. They’re aiming to ship to backers next April.
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