scholarly journals Monitoring Agricultural Fields Using Sentinel-1 and Temperature Data in Peru: Case Study of Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1993
Author(s):  
Cristian Silva-Perez ◽  
Armando Marino ◽  
Iain Cameron

This paper presents the analysis and a methodology for monitoring asparagus crops from remote sensing observations in a tropical region, where the local climatological conditions allow farmers to grow two production cycles per year. We used the freely available dual-polarisation GRD data provided by the Sentinel-1 satellite, temperature from a ground station and ground truth from January to August of 2019 to perform the analysis. We showed how particularly the VH polarisation can be used for monitoring the canopy formation, density and the growth rate, revealing connections with temperature. We also present a multi-output machine learning regression algorithm trained on a rich spatio-temporal dataset in which each output estimates the number of asparagus stems that are present in each of the pre-defined crop phenological stages. We tested several scenarios that evaluated the importance of each input data source and feature, with results that showed that the methodology was able to retrieve the number of asparagus stems in each crop stage when using information about starting date and temperature as predictors with coefficients of determination ( R 2 ) between 0.84 and 0.86 and root mean squared error (RMSE) between 2.9 and 2.7. For the multitemporal SAR scenario, results showed a maximum R 2 of 0.87 when using up to 5 images as input and an RMSE that maintains approximately the same values as the number of images increased. This suggests that for the conditions evaluated in this paper, the use of multitemporal SAR data only improved mildly the retrieval when the season start date and accumulated temperature are used to complement the backscatter.

Author(s):  
Cheng Qian ◽  
Nikos Kargas ◽  
Cao Xiao ◽  
Lucas Glass ◽  
Nicholas Sidiropoulos ◽  
...  

Real-world spatio-temporal data is often incomplete or inaccurate due to various data loading delays. For example, a location-disease-time tensor of case counts can have multiple delayed updates of recent temporal slices for some locations or diseases. Recovering such missing or noisy (under-reported) elements of the input tensor can be viewed as a generalized tensor completion problem. Existing tensor completion methods usually assume that i) missing elements are randomly distributed and ii) noise for each tensor element is i.i.d. zero-mean. Both assumptions can be violated for spatio-temporal tensor data. We often observe multiple versions of the input tensor with different under-reporting noise levels. The amount of noise can be time- or location-dependent as more updates are progressively introduced to the tensor. We model such dynamic data as a multi-version tensor with an extra tensor mode capturing the data updates. We propose a low-rank tensor model to predict the updates over time. We demonstrate that our method can accurately predict the ground-truth values of many real-world tensors. We obtain up to 27.2% lower root mean-squared-error compared to the best baseline method. Finally, we extend our method to track the tensor data over time, leading to significant computational savings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kassim S. Mwitondi ◽  
Isaac Munyakazi ◽  
Barnabas N. Gatsheni

Abstract In the light of the recent technological advances in computing and data explosion, the complex interactions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) present both a challenge and an opportunity to researchers and decision makers across fields and sectors. The deep and wide socio-economic, cultural and technological variations across the globe entail a unified understanding of the SDG project. The complexity of SDGs interactions and the dynamics through their indicators align naturally to technical and application specifics that require interdisciplinary solutions. We present a consilient approach to expounding triggers of SDG indicators. Illustrated through data segmentation, it is designed to unify our understanding of the complex overlap of the SDGs by utilising data from different sources. The paper treats each SDG as a Big Data source node, with the potential to contribute towards a unified understanding of applications across the SDG spectrum. Data for five SDGs was extracted from the United Nations SDG indicators data repository and used to model spatio-temporal variations in search of robust and consilient scientific solutions. Based on a number of pre-determined assumptions on socio-economic and geo-political variations, the data is subjected to sequential analyses, exploring distributional behaviour, component extraction and clustering. All three methods exhibit pronounced variations across samples, with initial distributional and data segmentation patterns isolating South Africa from the remaining five countries. Data randomness is dealt with via a specially developed algorithm for sampling, measuring and assessing, based on repeated samples of different sizes. Results exhibit consistent variations across samples, based on socio-economic, cultural and geo-political variations entailing a unified understanding, across disciplines and sectors. The findings highlight novel paths towards attaining informative patterns for a unified understanding of the triggers of SDG indicators and open new paths to interdisciplinary research.


Drones ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Bingsheng Wei ◽  
Martin Barczyk

We consider the problem of vision-based detection and ranging of a target UAV using the video feed from a monocular camera onboard a pursuer UAV. Our previously published work in this area employed a cascade classifier algorithm to locate the target UAV, which was found to perform poorly in complex background scenes. We thus study the replacement of the cascade classifier algorithm with newer machine learning-based object detection algorithms. Five candidate algorithms are implemented and quantitatively tested in terms of their efficiency (measured as frames per second processing rate), accuracy (measured as the root mean squared error between ground truth and detected location), and consistency (measured as mean average precision) in a variety of flight patterns, backgrounds, and test conditions. Assigning relative weights of 20%, 40% and 40% to these three criteria, we find that when flying over a white background, the top three performers are YOLO v2 (76.73 out of 100), Faster RCNN v2 (63.65 out of 100), and Tiny YOLO (59.50 out of 100), while over a realistic background, the top three performers are Faster RCNN v2 (54.35 out of 100, SSD MobileNet v1 (51.68 out of 100) and SSD Inception v2 (50.72 out of 100), leading us to recommend Faster RCNN v2 as the recommended solution. We then provide a roadmap for further work in integrating the object detector into our vision-based UAV tracking system.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-45
Author(s):  
Antons Rebguns ◽  
Diana F. Spears ◽  
Richard Anderson-Sprecher ◽  
Aleksey Kletsov

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework for swarms of agents. Before deploying a swarm for a task, it is advantageous to predict whether a desired percentage of the swarm will succeed. The authors present a framework that uses a small group of expendable “scout” agents to predict the success probability of the entire swarm, thereby preventing many agent losses. The scouts apply one of two formulas to predict – the standard Bernoulli trials formula or the new Bayesian formula. For experimental evaluation, the framework is applied to simulated agents navigating around obstacles to reach a goal location. Extensive experimental results compare the mean-squared error of the predictions of both formulas with ground truth, under varying circumstances. Results indicate the accuracy and robustness of the Bayesian approach. The framework also yields an intriguing result, namely, that both formulas usually predict better in the presence of (Lennard-Jones) inter-agent forces than when their independence assumptions hold.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (15) ◽  
pp. 5191
Author(s):  
Yıldız Karadayı ◽  
Mehmet N. Aydin ◽  
A. Selçuk Öğrenci

Multivariate time-series data with a contextual spatial attribute have extensive use for finding anomalous patterns in a wide variety of application domains such as earth science, hurricane tracking, fraud, and disease outbreak detection. In most settings, spatial context is often expressed in terms of ZIP code or region coordinates such as latitude and longitude. However, traditional anomaly detection techniques cannot handle more than one contextual attribute in a unified way. In this paper, a new hybrid approach based on deep learning is proposed to solve the anomaly detection problem in multivariate spatio-temporal dataset. It works under the assumption that no prior knowledge about the dataset and anomalies are available. The architecture of the proposed hybrid framework is based on an autoencoder scheme, and it is more efficient in extracting features from the spatio-temporal multivariate datasets compared to the traditional spatio-temporal anomaly detection techniques. We conducted extensive experiments using buoy data of 2005 from National Data Buoy Center and Hurricane Katrina as ground truth. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed model achieves more than 10% improvement in accuracy over the methods used in the comparison where our model jointly processes the spatial and temporal dimensions of the contextual data to extract features for anomaly detection.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1052 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reto Stöckli ◽  
Jędrzej S. Bojanowski ◽  
Viju O. John ◽  
Anke Duguay-Tetzlaff ◽  
Quentin Bourgeois ◽  
...  

Can we build stable Climate Data Records (CDRs) spanning several satellite generations? This study outlines how the ClOud Fractional Cover dataset from METeosat First and Second Generation (COMET) of the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) was created for the 25-year period 1991–2015. Modern multi-spectral cloud detection algorithms cannot be used for historical Geostationary (GEO) sensors due to their limited spectral resolution. We document the innovation needed to create a retrieval algorithm from scratch to provide the required accuracy and stability over several decades. It builds on inter-calibrated radiances now available for historical GEO sensors. It uses spatio-temporal information and a robust clear-sky retrieval. The real strength of GEO observations—the diurnal cycle of reflectance and brightness temperature—is fully exploited instead of just accounting for single “imagery”. The commonly-used naive Bayesian classifier is extended with covariance information of cloud state and variability. The resulting cloud fractional cover CDR has a bias of 1% Mean Bias Error (MBE), a precision of 7% bias-corrected Root-Mean-Squared-Error (bcRMSE) for monthly means, and a decadal stability of 1%. Our experience can serve as motivation for CDR developers to explore novel concepts to exploit historical sensor data.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 2009-2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Meyer ◽  
Johannes Drönner ◽  
Thomas Nauss

Abstract. A spatially explicit mapping of rainfall is necessary for southern Africa for eco-climatological studies or nowcasting but accurate estimates are still a challenging task. This study presents a method to estimate hourly rainfall based on data from the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI). Rainfall measurements from about 350 weather stations from 2010–2014 served as ground truth for calibration and validation. SEVIRI and weather station data were used to train neural networks that allowed the estimation of rainfall area and rainfall quantities over all times of the day. The results revealed that 60 % of recorded rainfall events were correctly classified by the model (probability of detection, POD). However, the false alarm ratio (FAR) was high (0.80), leading to a Heidke skill score (HSS) of 0.18. Estimated hourly rainfall quantities were estimated with an average hourly correlation of ρ = 0. 33 and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.72. The correlation increased with temporal aggregation to 0.52 (daily), 0.67 (weekly) and 0.71 (monthly). The main weakness was the overestimation of rainfall events. The model results were compared to the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. Despite being a comparably simple approach, the presented MSG-based rainfall retrieval outperformed GPM IMERG in terms of rainfall area detection: GPM IMERG had a considerably lower POD. The HSS was not significantly different compared to the MSG-based retrieval due to a lower FAR of GPM IMERG. There were no further significant differences between the MSG-based retrieval and GPM IMERG in terms of correlation with the observed rainfall quantities. The MSG-based retrieval, however, provides rainfall in a higher spatial resolution. Though estimating rainfall from satellite data remains challenging, especially at high temporal resolutions, this study showed promising results towards improved spatio-temporal estimates of rainfall over southern Africa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5027
Author(s):  
Leonardo M. Bastos ◽  
Andre Froes de Borja Reis ◽  
Ajay Sharda ◽  
Yancy Wright ◽  
Ignacio A. Ciampitti

The spatial information about crop grain protein concentration (GPC) can be an important layer (i.e., a map that can be utilized in a geographic information system) with uses from nutrient management to grain marketing. Recently, on- and off-combine harvester sensors have been developed for creating spatial GPC layers. The quality of these GPC layers, as measured by the coefficient of determination (R2) and the root mean squared error (RMSE) of the relationship between measured and predicted GPC, is affected by different sensing characteristics. The objectives of this synthesis analysis were to (i) contrast GPC prediction R2 and RMSE for different sensor types (on-combine, off-combine proximal and remote); (ii) contrast and discuss the best spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions and features, and the best statistical approach for off-combine sensors; and (iii) review current technology limitations and provide future directions for spatial GPC research and application. On-combine sensors were more accurate than remote sensors in predicting GPC, yet with similar precision. The most optimal conditions for creating reliable GPC predictions from off-combine sensors were sensing near anthesis using multiple spectral features that include the blue and green bands, and that are analyzed by complex statistical approaches. We discussed sensor choice in regard to previously identified uses of a GPC layer, and further proposed new uses with remote sensors including same season fertilizer management for increased GPC, and in advance segregated harvest planning related to field prioritization and farm infrastructure. Limitations of the GPC literature were identified and future directions for GPC research were proposed as (i) performing GPC predictive studies on a larger variety of crops and water regimes; (ii) reporting proper GPC ground-truth calibrations; (iii) conducting proper model training, validation, and testing; (iv) reporting model fit metrics that express greater concordance with the ideal predictive model; and (v) implementing and benchmarking one or more uses for a GPC layer.


Anomaly detection is an area of video analysis has a great importance in automated surveillance. Although it has been extensively studied, there has been little work started using CNN networks. Hence, in this thesis we presented a novel approach for learning motion features and modeling normal Spatio-temporal dynamics for anomaly detection. In our technique, we capture variations in scale of the patterns of motion in an image object by using optical flow dense estimation technique and train our auto encoder model using convolution long short term memories (ConvLSTM2D) as we are processing video frames and we predict the anomaly in real time using Euclidean distance between the generated and the ground truth frame and we achieved a real time accuracy of nearly 98% for the youtube videos which are not used for either testing or training. Error between the network’s output and the target output is used to classify a video volume as normal or abnormal. In addition to the use of reconstruction error, we also use prediction error for anomaly detection. The prediction models show comparable performance with state of the art methods. In comparison with the proposed method, performance is improved in one dataset. Moreover, running time is significantly faster.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chawarat Rotejanaprasert ◽  
Nattwut Ekapirat ◽  
Prayuth Sudathip ◽  
Richard J. Maude

Abstract Background In many areas of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), malaria endemic regions have shrunk to patches of predominantly low-transmission. With a regional goal of elimination by 2030, it is important to use appropriate methods to analyze and predict trends in incidence in these remaining transmission foci to inform planning efforts. Climatic variables have been associated with malaria incidence to varying degrees across the globe but the relationship is less clear in the GMS and standard methodologies may not be appropriate to account for the lag between climate and incidence and for locations with low numbers of cases. Methods In this study, a methodology was developed to estimate the spatio-temporal lag effect of climatic factors on malaria incidence in Thailand within a Bayesian framework. A simulation was conducted based on ground truth of lagged effect curves representing the delayed relation with sparse malaria cases as seen in our study population. A case study to estimate the delayed effect of environmental variables was used with malaria incidence at a fine geographic scale of sub-districts in a western province of Thailand. Results From the simulation study, the model assumptions which accommodated both delayed effects and excessive zeros appeared to have the best overall performance across evaluation metrics and scenarios. The case study demonstrated lagged climatic effect estimation of the proposed modeling with real data. The models appeared to be useful to estimate the shape of association with malaria incidence. Conclusions A new method to estimate the spatiotemporal effect of climate on malaria trends in low transmission settings is presented. The developed methodology has potential to improve understanding and estimation of past and future trends in malaria incidence. With further development, this could assist policy makers with decisions on how to more effectively distribute resources and plan strategies for malaria elimination.


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