High Performance Multispectral Camera for Aerial Operation

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) are a low-carbon emission alternative for aerial imaging and**mapping. Multispectral and hyperspectral imaging uses narrower band sensing, more bands and typically, both**visible and non-visible wavelengths of light to observe what isn't visible to an RGB camera or the naked eye.**Stream Technologies has selected 10 bands and image post-processing algorithms that provide insight into**plant species, nutritional and disease stress, which are valuable indications for precision agriculture.**Unfortunately, their camera's mass and size of both the optics and electronics make it difficult to mount in most**UAVs. The narrow field of view requires higher altitudes for aerial photography than Transport Canada**normally grants for UAVs.**Our lab has 6+ years experience with building and operating UAVs and producing georectified images,**including building compact optical systems and airborne electronics for capturing and tagging images with the**appropriate metadata. In a previous Engage grant with Stream Technologies, we demonstrated a UAV-borne**multispectral camera and agricultural applications. We have already received Transport Canada approval for**field testing that will take place over agricultural lands.**In this project, the multispectral camera will be expanded to more bands and higher performance, including**higher frame rates and higher resolution than available systems. A new FPGA-based camera backend will be**explored to significantly reduce the mass and cost of the camera.