Plant Species Recognition in Grassland

Grassland makes up around 40 percent of the Earth’s land mass; the livelihood of around two billion people worldwide is directly dependent it. Grassland serves as pasture for livestock, performs important ecosystem functions ssuch as carbon storage and guarantees food security for a growing world population.  

Digitalized and automated recognition of plant species and analysis of crop growth assists not only in grassland management but also in validating funding applications for environmental initiatives. UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) technology shows great potential here  and can thus help to reduce the amount of fertilizers and pesticides and optimize pasture management.

Machine learning and AI algorithms are employed in recognizing and localizing plant species from the combined drone images and sensor data supplied. Individual plants or groups of the same species can be identified and localized down to the nearest centimeter, allowing maps to be drawn showing the distribution of plant species within the field that has been surveyed from above.

Learn more here.