OpticalAgri_horizontal_light

Optical Sensing for Agricultural Applications

SPADE project coordinator Prof. Dionysis Bochtis and Dr. Aristotelis C. Tagarakis, together with Dr. Dimitrios Kateris are guest-editing a Special Issue on “Optical Sensing for Agricultural Applications” for Remote Sensing Journal.

Submission deadline: 31 August 2023

Read more

spade-1st-flight-2

Successful launch of SPADE’s first drone flights

After a development period, SPADE’s inaugural drone flight was carried out with success. This important occasion for SPADE took place in the Balearic Islands and was made possible by the great work of partners such as Any Solution, Cooperativa Agrícola de Sóller and Mallorcan New Potatoes.

These drones will be used to map and monitor crops, supporting farmers and agriculture cooperatives in the early detection of plagues and diseases and in a better and sustainable management of their exploitations.

This specific flight mostly focused on making sure the involved parties become familiarized with the drones, their remote controls and interfaces. Outside of ensuring the drone works correctly, the main purpose of this activity was to observe how phantom 4 (mainspectral) works and if all automatically generated pictures (RGB, NDVI, GNDVI, LCI, NDRE and OSAVI formats) are displayed correctly.

This flight marks a key step in SPADE’s ambitious journey, paving the way for additional discoveries and a deeper understanding of fostering, cropping and livestock farming.