Advances in small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) are carving a new paradigm in remote sensing sensor development, integration, data processing, and exploitation. Led by the rapid development in navigation sensors and motivated by an ever increasing application fields, the utilization of remote sensing sensors onboard sUAS is taking off, literally. The suite of sensors onboard sUAS, including navigation, Lidar, multispectral, hyperspectral, microwave, and thermal sensors sets the stage for new applications that take advantage of the combined increase in the sUAS spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions. The integration and use of these sensors is an active research area, but without robust calibration and validation procedures, benefits of this technology will be, at best, diminished. These data require accurate calibration procedures to account for all sensor-, geometry-, and environment-induced discrepancies that can mask the targeted signal and make it harder to detect. Similarly, the application-specific algorithms applied to process and analyze the data are essential for successful use of sUAS. New natural resource management applications in fields such as invasive plant detection and control, disaster management, environmental monitoring, wetland classification, wildlife monitoring, and coastal management are emerging every day. Precision agriculture is also one of the most promising application areas for sUAS remote sensing. Still, the methods used in, for example, plant phenotyping, pesticide/fertilization management, and stress detection and diagnoses, are evolving. The European Journal of Remote Sensing (EuJRS) invites a broad range of high quality original research articles, or review articles focused on sUAS remote sensing system development, sensor testing and calibration, data pre-processing, analysis, and fusion, and applications in the natural resource management and precision agricultural fields. This special issue is intended to present and discuss breakthrough technological and methodical developments which are expected to transform these application fields. Potential topics include, but not limited to:
- Sensor development, integration and calibration
- Geometric and radiometric data calibration and pre-processing techniques
- Data fusion methods and applications
- Large dataset data management and analysis
- Emerging technologies and applications in natural resource management (e.g. invasive plant mapping, wildfire and flood control, studying forest structure, wildlife monitoring, etc.)
- Emerging technologies and applications in precision agriculture (e.g. plant phenotyping, weed/pest control, disease detection, nutrient management, etc.)
How to Submit your Manuscript
All submissions will be peer reviewed according to the European Journal of Remote Sensing (EuJRS) guidelines. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published or be under review elsewhere.
Prospective authors should consult the Instructions for Authors page on the journal homepage for guidelines and information on paper formatting and submission.
Authors should submit manuscripts using the EuJRS manuscript central system at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tejr. Please choose 'EuJRS Special Issue Paper' from the 'Manuscript Type' picklist on the submission form, irrespective of the paper type (i.e. even if your paper would normally be classified as a Research Paper, or Review Article). Also, please enter “Small unmanned aerial system development and applications in precision agriculture and natural resource management” in the space provided on the submission form for the name of the special issue.
EuJRS is an Open Access journal. All submissions received before 1 July 2017 will be published Open Access free of charge. From 1 July 2017, the standard article publishing charge (APC) will be: $500/£325/€420. Depending on your location, these charges may be subject to local taxes.
Should you have any submission questions, please contact Patrizia Rossi, Administrator of EuJRS at: email@example.com.
Full paper submission deadline: 30 November 2017
Articles will be available online approximately one month after acceptance, final technical review and the completion of revisions for compliance with journal format.
If you have any specific questions about the special issue, please contact the guest editors listed below.
- Guest Editor: Amr Abd-Elrahman, University of Florida, USA (firstname.lastname@example.org)
- Guest Editor: Ayman Habib, Purdue University, USA (email@example.com)
- Guest Editor: Bruce Quirk, United States Geological Survey, USA (firstname.lastname@example.org)
- Guest Editor: Jordi Corbera, Institute Cartographic and Geological of Catalonia, Spain (email@example.com)