Raptor ACS-225LR
EARTH AND SKY SENSING
The Raptor ACS-225LR is an active aerial crop sensor that contains an integrated light source for operation under varying ambient illumination conditions. The sensor is capable of collecting vegetation information when attached to agricultural aircraft flying at low altitudes (5 m to over 50 m) above crop canopies. Information produced by the sensor includes NDVI and SRI vegetation indexes as well as basic reflectance information and pseudo height from the NIR channel.
For ground-based applications, the Raptor ACS-225LR sensor can be mounted to the cab of virtually any type of vehicle to remotely sense and/or map plant or crop canopy biomass while driving through a field. Information produced by the sensor can be utilized to quantify the impact of nutrients, water, disease or other growing conditions on plants or crops.
MULTI-CHANNEL SPECTRAL MEASUREMENT
The Raptor ACS-225LR incorporates two optical measurement channels. The sensor simultaneously measures crop/soil reflectance at 660 nm and 850 nm (or 735 nm and 850 nm model option). A unique feature of the ACS-225LR sensor is its ability to make height independent spectral reflectance measurements. Holland Scientific refers to these reflectance measurements as Pseudo Solar Reflectance (PSR) measurements. This means the spectral reflectance bands are scaled as percentages and will not vary with sensor height above a target. This opens the possibility of using literally dozens of vegetative indices that do not use ratio based calculations.
COLLECT DATA EASILY
Using the Holland Scientific GeoSCOUT GLS-400 datalogger, data can be easily and quickly recorded to a text file on an SD flash card. Additionally, by connecting a GPS receiver to the GeoSCOUT, data collected from the ACS-225LR can be georeferenced and stored for later analysis in third party party GIS software.
If you to want read more about R&D involving these sensors, visit the University of New England (Australia) Precision Agriculture Research Group’s website – www.une.edu.au/parg.