The Integrative Crop Ecophysiology Research Group of the Plant Physiology Section at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona has internationally proven experience in the study of physiological and genetic mechanisms determining yield productivity and adaptation to major abiotic (drought, salinity, pollutants) and biotic stresses affecting cereals and other crops (wheat, barley, maize, and quinoa) with a new line of research extending to forest genetics. Among the main technological approaches, we include field proximal and remote sensing technologies in smartphones, field, aerial (UAV) and satellite platforms. The flagship multispectral sensor has been refitted to provide a full simulation of the European Space Agency Sentinel 2 multispectral sensor. Portable UAV platforms include integrated GPS, thermal, multispectral and very high resolution RGB color imaging capabilities. The most advanced UAV carries the combined payload of hyperspectral and lidar sensors for up to half an hour of flight time. Dr. Shawn Kefauver is a professionally licensed UAV operator and pilot. He also leads the CA22136 – PANGEOS COST Action, Pan-European Network of Green Deal Agriculture and Forestry Earth Observation Science, PANGEOS.
Other more traditional field phenotyping, precision agriculture, forestry research and plant ecophysiology research capacities include a wide range of canopy and leaf sensors covering gas exchange, stable isotopes analyses and analytical approaches as indicators of photosynthetic, transpirative and nitrogen metabolism. A new greenhouse phenotyping facility with advanced photosynthetic assessment capacities will commence installment in 2025.
We have at this time multiple different UAV platforms and sensor combinations for potentiating research.
1. DJI Matrice 300 RTK UAV with an 11-band multispectral Tetracam mini-MCA 11+ILS simulator of Sentinel 2 spectral bands and DJI H2OT TIR+RGB camera and TEAX FLIR Tau2 640 TC2.0+GPS.
2. Through Agrotecnio and CTFC CERCA-GINYS partnership, a Matrice 350 RTK Headwall Hyperspec Nano hyperspectral UAV with integrated Velodyne Lidar or Riegl multi-return Lidar can also be acquired and used at additional cost as they are shared infrastructure of the Joint Research Unit (JRU).
3. Our third set of UAV capabilities are integrated and travel friendly folding DJI Mavic UAVs:
- DJI Mavic 2 Pro +/- Agrocam NDVI GEO
- DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced RGB 48 MP + TIR 640*512 pixels
- DJI Mavic 3M Multispectral 4 × 5 MP G/R/RE/NIR and 20 MP RGB 4/3 CMOS, RTK GPS.
4. Mikrokopter Oktokopter 6S12, Mikrokopter Oktokopter 4S12, and Quadcopter XL that can be customized with:
- Tetracam micro-MCA 6 + eILS with custom filters for SIF FLD3 estimation (under development)
- AIRINOV 4C NDVI-NDRE+GPS, AIRINOV 4C NDVI-PRI+GPS
- TEAX FLIR Tau2 640 TC2.0+GPS, FLIR TIR+RGB DUO camera
- Panasonic Lumix GX7/GX8 16 MP or Sony Alpha 7rii full frame evil 48 MP with GPS
- AgroCam NDVI modified NDVI GEO camera.
GPS: DJI RTK2 GPS system and Propeller AeroPoints x 10 high precision GPS panels for cm spatial accuracy
Spectral Calibration: Sphere Optics Zenith custom calibration panels 90, 75, 50, 25 % reflectance.
Field Sensors include: RGB Sony QX1, RGB Panasonic Lumix GX7/GX8, 5m telescoping, Specim IQ hyperspectral camera, PSI Fluorpen, Greenseeker NDVI, Force-A Dualex leaf sensor for Chl, Flav, Anth, Photosynq MultispeQ, SPAD, Licor LAI-2200 ceptometer, Licor LI-600 Porometer/Fluorometer. Fluke and Raytek TIR sensors and CAT S60/S61 mobile phones for surface temperature, Fluke thermohygrometer for VPD, Humidity and Air temperature.
Expertise in open-source software and available commercially available software for image processing includes Agisoft Metashape, Pix4Dmapper, Pix4Dfields, QGIS, ArcGIS, FIJI, ENVI 4.3 and 5.6.2, and R and RStudio.
Shawn C. Kefauver 