LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION USING A UAV-BORNE SPECTROMETER

Abstract. Small fixed wing and rotor-copter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are being used for low altitude remote sensing for thematic land classification and precision agriculture applications. Various sensors operating in the non-visible spectrum such as multispectral, hyperspectral and thermal sensors can be used as payloads. This work presents a preliminary study on the use of unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a compact spectrometer for land cover type characterization. When calibrated, the measured spectra by the UAV spectrometer can be processed and compared reference data to generate georeferenced reflection spectra enabling the identification, classification and characterization of land cover elements. For this case study we used a DJI Flamewheel F550 hexacopter and the FLAME-NIR spectrometer for hyperspectral measurements. The calibration of the spectrometer is described as well the approach to determine its spatial footprint. The spectrometer spectral exposure labeled ground point can be used to determine the land cover classification. Preliminary results of a case-study are presented.