Crop Stress Algorithm Using Hyper/Multispectral Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing

To support the development of technologies and analysis tools for scientific and commercial applications of remote sensing, Spectral Sciences Inc. proposes a new approach for improved measurement of plant water stress using hyperspectral or multispectral remote thermal infrared (TIR) spectral imagery. Using many TIR wavelength bands together with vegetation cover-sensitive short-wave bands will enable the extraction of accurate plant canopy temperature, the key diagnostic for water stress, along with vegetation emissivity information that is not presently available. The multitude of TIR bands should greatly improve the accuracy of the measurements compared to conventional broad-band systems, and would make remote sensing more practical by reducing the need for ancillary ground and calibration data. By allowing the quantity and timing of irrigation to be optimized, water stress measurements could lead to enormous cost savings in the agriculture industry. The technology would provide a valuable research tool in the immediate term and could be developed into a commercial system for crop health monitoring. In Phase I the basic retrieval concept will be evaluated using both simulations and real data. In Phase II extended field measurements will be conducted and analyzed and a prototype commercial data analysis software package developed.