Drone Services for Plant Water-Status Mapping

Achieving an efficient management of agricultural fields is crucial for farmers, considering the challenges posed by water resources sustainability. Monitoring tools allow winemakers to keep their vineyards under control and improve the plants' health with targeted actions, such as irrigations scheduling or specific treatments. Knowing the actual number of plants may not be evident, particularly in old plantation, where vines might have been removed or added to the initial planting scheme, or even they have never been counted. However, the knowledge of the number and position of the plants is important to be able to adapt the irrigation network and properly adjust the irrigation schedule. The aim of this project is to build a drone service for precision monitoring of vineyards. Here, an algorithm to detect the position and number of plants in vineyards using drone RGB imagery is presented. First results show a plant detection accuracy of 87%.