The Use of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Tree Phenotyping Studies

Ahmed, Shara, Nicholson, Catherine E., Muto, Paul, Perry, Justin and Dean, John (2021) The Use of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Tree Phenotyping Studies. Separations, 8 (9). p. 160. ISSN 2297-8739

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Abstract

A strip of 20th-century landscape woodland planted alongside a 17th to mid-18th century ancient and semi-natural woodland (ASNW) was investigated by applied aerial spectroscopy using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a multispectral image camera (MSI). A simple classification approach of normalized difference spectral index (NDSI), derived using principal component analysis (PCA), enabled the identification of the non-native trees within the 20th-century boundary. The tree species within this boundary, classified by NDSI, were further segmented by the machine learning segmentation method of k-means clustering. This combined innovative approach has enabled the identification of multiple tree species in the 20th-century boundary. Phenotyping of trees at canopy level using the UAV with MSI, across 8052 m2, identified black pine (23), Norway maple (19), Scots pine (12), and sycamore (19) as well as native trees (oak and silver birch, 27). This derived data was corroborated by field identification at ground-level, over an area of 6785 m2, that confirmed the presence of black pine (26), Norway maple (30), Scots pine (10), and sycamore (14) as well as other trees (oak and silver birch, 20). The benefits of using a UAV, with an MSI camera, for monitoring tree boundaries next to a new housing development are demonstrated.

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