Recent Advancements in Drone-Based Remote Sensing for Precision Agriculture: A Mini-Review of Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

This mini-review provides an overview of current trends in the application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drone, to crop production in the larger framework of precision agriculture. It presents the idea of using drones with RGB, multispectral, hyperspectral, and thermal sensors to offer spatiotemporal data with high resolution to monitor crop development, evaluate the condition of plants, identify disease and pests, and determine the state of soils and water. The review explains the main operational strategies, such as image acquisition guidelines, vegetation indices calculation, and the use of UAV-derived data with the use of geographic information systems and machine learning technology in order to assist site-specific management decisions. The available evidence suggests that the use of drones is capable of increasing input-use efficiency, allowing the use of fertilizers and pesticides on a variable rate, decreasing labor and operating expenses, and improving yield and the quality of products. Simultaneously, the review highlights recurring issues among them being low flight duration and low payload, complexity of data processing, regulatory barriers, and economic and technical aspects of adoption, especially to smallholder farmers. It finds that, although drone technology has a huge potential to transform crop production into a more accurate, sustainable, and climate resilient process, this promise will only be achievable through specific policy backing, further technological development, low-cost and robust platforms, as well as capacity building efforts that will ensure that UAV-based solutions can be accessible and viable in a wide range of farming systems.