Spectrometer

Spectrometers are usually the size of small refridgerators or a desktop, containing very

complicated electronics. They are generally used to evaluate light wavelengths and can

determine types of materials that way.

Spectrometers haven't been used commercially on drones - until now. We are leading the way and are very excited

by the results. It really is just like having a laboratory in the sky (or in your hand). Plants are very predictable with they are healthy or stressed. It just take a way to 'see' it. Now with our mini spectrometer you can.

Compared to NDVI:

NDVI photography gives very similar results except it isn't as accurate. NDVI has become the standard for drone agriculture imagery. But it really can't tell you the exact health of a plant, it can only tell IN RELATION to other plants, which ones are healthy and which are stressed. The spectrometer on the other hand is an ABOLUTE device. It can tell you exactly how bright a particular wavelenth is thus giving the health. See below for explaination.

Our spectrometer with green-leaf plants:

With our mini spectrometer, we are able to see part of UV spectrum, the entire human vision spectrum as well as the NIR near infrared spectrum giving you a COMPLETE picture of the health of the plant:

All green-leaf plants have the exact same graph signature from a spectrometer.

A healthy plan has a distinctive 'peak' for the green leaf color. And outside of human vision it has a huge double peak in the infrared frequencies.

A stressed plant has a subtle elongated peak for the leaf color and the infrared double peak is much lower. The lower the double peak, the more stressed the plant is.

If you are familiar with NDVI images, it is comparing the difference between the green leaf peak with the infrared peaks to get their output (photographically).

Our mini spectrometer will fit in the palm of your hand, yet still full-function and extremely accurate. Has an onboard computer (Raspberry Pi) that transmits wirelessly to a smarphone or tablet.

Pros and Cons:

Spectrometers don't work well with drones with row crops like grapes, olives, almonds . That's because the entire lens area must be filled with plants. If you see dirt, street in the field of vision, it will throw the readings off. It still can be used, just the drone needs to fly low and be controlled by computer to be guided by GPS so it can be positioned directly over the row or tree. A tall pole can be used instead.

It works great with full field crops like corn, alfalfa, hay, etc.

It also isn't convenient for a continuous reading of the entire field. For NDVI you are able to see an entire field all at once and see the healthy and stressed plants in one image. For a spectrometer, it only sees one small area at a time so it's better to do SPOT readings throughout the field.

So what is a spectrometer? The idea is very simple. Light goes into an opening, goes through a prism to split it into rainbow colors and has a sensor for each color. In our case 410 sensors for each individual wavelength. So even though it doesn't output pretty pictures, it does give you an extremely accurate graph.

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Sample NDVI image

Our Mini Spectrometer Demo Video (watch full screen)

Normal Image

Infrared Image