Unmanned aerial vehicle-based remote sensing for rangeland assessment, monitoring, and management Albert Rango a , Andrea Laliberte b , Jeffrey E. Herrick a , Craig Winters b , Kris Havstad a , Caiti Steele b , and Dawn Browning a a USDA-ARS, Jornada Experimental Range, 2995 Knox Street, Las Cruces, NM 88003 alrango@nmsu.edu , jherrick@nmsu.edu , khavstad@nmsu.edu ; dbrownin@nmsu.edu b New Mexico State University, Jornada Experimental Range, 2995 Knox Street, Las Cruces, NM 88003 alaliber@nmsu.edu , craigwin@nmsu.edu; caiti@nmsu.edu Abstract. Rangeland comprises as much as 70% of the Earth’s land surface area. Much of this vast space is in very remote areas that are expensive and often impossible to access on the ground. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have great potential for rangeland management. UAVs have several advantages over satellites and piloted aircraft: they can be deployed quickly and repeatedly; they are less costly and safer than piloted aircraft; they are flexible in terms of flying height and timing of missions; and they can obtain imagery at sub-decimeter resolution. This hyperspatial imagery allows for quantification of plant cover, composition, and structure at multiple spatial scales. Our experiments have shown that this capability, from an off-the-shelf mini-UAV, is directly applicable to operational agency needs for measuring and monitoring. For use by operational agencies to carry out their mandated responsibilities, various requirements must be met: an affordable and reliable platform; a capability for autonomous, low altitude flights; takeoff and landing in small areas surrounded by rugged terrain; and an easily applied data analysis methodology. A number of image processing and orthorectification challenges have been or are currently being addressed, but the potential to depict the land surface commensurate with field data perspectives across broader spatial extents is unrivaled. Keywords: Small unmanned aerial vehicles, aerial photography, autonomous flight, rangeland applications, indicators. 1 INTRODUCTION Civilian applications of UAVs have been increasing in recent years. Most UAVs used in civilian applications can be traced back to military UAV development. As recently as 2004, only approximately 2% of the 2400 UAVs were operating solely in the civil market (1). The remaining UAVs were operated by military, commercial, and nongovernmental organizations with considerable overlap between the military and commercial markets. The following highlights extracted from Newcome (1) illustrate the importance of military UAV development to the civilian market. In each instance, the UAV had its developmental origin in military applications. The first UAV to take photography for aerial reconnaissance was the Radioplane in 1955 in the United States. Similar capabilities were developed by the French in the later 1950s, the Italians in the 1960s, and the Russians in the early 1970s. Radar and TV were flown on UAVs in 1941 in the United States, but only for guidance purposes. Imagery collected for reconnaissance became widespread from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s during the Vietnam War. Many of the capabilities developed during this conflict had direct application to future civil sector UAVs and civil applications followed soon after. In 1986 UAVs were tested for monitoring forest fires in Montana, while the Condor UAV was the first UAV to takeoff and land autonomously. By 1994, the Predator UAV was providing 30 cm resolution images (1). Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Vol. 3, 033542 (13 August 2009) ©2009 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers [DOI: 10.1117/1.3216822] Received 29 Apr 2009; accepted 11 Aug 2009; published 13 Aug 2009 [CCC: 19313195/2009/$25.00] Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Vol. 3, 033542 (2009) Page 1