|
Mission Plan
Over a two-week period in spring, 2005, a nighttime UAV mission will be conducted to measure the surface temperature and rate of temperature change based on surface emissivity. The flight window will be from midnight to 6am and measurements will be taken on an hourly basis. Fixed flightlines over the vineyard will be flown repeatedly. The resulting temperature maps will be at the spatial resolution of ~10 m, enabling the requisite longer integration times needed for the detection of areas experiencing the most rapid declines in temperature.
Pixels will integrate radiation from not only the discontinuous overstory canopy surface of the grape vine rows, but also the more continuous grass, weed and bare ground understory. For the vineyard manager, a series of relative thermal images showing trends and rates of change ultimately will form the basis for the key decision of timing and location of the irrigation treatments.
|
 |
|
