Survey of thermal infrared remote sensing for Unmanned Aerial Systems

As Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) technology matures, the list of potential civilian applications continues to grow substantially. Currently, the majority of applications are centered around providing optical imagery, either in real-time video or high resolution mapping. But as more sophisticated applications are desired, the limitations of simple imagery are becoming more evident, especially for precision agricultural applications. However, recent advancements in UAS based precision agriculture have demonstrated the effectiveness of including thermal infrared (TIR) cameras. In many situations, decision support indicators are evident in the TIR spectrum, whereas they are undetectable in the visible light and near-infrared spectrum. In this paper, a survey of some of the applications under development utilizing TIR imagery is presented along with implementation strategies to provide guidance for researchers wishing to add TIR imagery into their applications.