Spectral measurements are employed in many precision agriculture applications, due to their ability to monitor the vegetation’s health state. Spectral vegetation indices are one of the main techniques currently used in remote sensing activities, since they are related to biophysical and biochemical crop variables. Moreover, they have been evaluated in some studies as potentially beneficial for detecting or differentiating crop diseases. Flavescence Dorée (FD) is an infectious, incurable disease of the grapevine that can produce severe yield losses and, hence, compromise the stability of the vineyards. The aim of this study was to develop specific spectral disease indices (SDIs) for the detection of FD disease in grapevines. Spectral signatures of healthy and diseased grapevine leaves were measured with a non-imaging spectro-radiometer at two infection severity levels. The most discriminating wavelengths were selected by a genetic algorithm (GA) feature selection tool, the Spectral Disease Indices (SDIs) are designed by exhaustively testing all possible combinations of wavelengths chosen. The best weighted combination of a single wavelength and a normalized difference is chosen to create the index. The SDIs are tested for their ability to differentiate healthy from diseased vine leaves and they are compared to some common set of Spectral Vegetation Indices (SVIs). It was demonstrated that using vegetation indices was, in general, better than using complete spectral data and that SDIs specifically designed for FD performed better than traditional SVIs in most of cases. The precision of the classification is higher than 90%. This study demonstrates that SDIs have the potential to improve disease detection, identification and monitoring in precision agriculture applications.

Plant diseases are one of the main reasons behind major economic and production losses in the agricultural field. Current research activities enable large fields monitoring and plant disease detection using innovative and robust technologies. French grapevines have a reputation for producing premium quality wines, however, these major fruit crops are susceptible to many diseases, including Esca, Downy mildew, Powdery mildew, Yellowing, and many others. In this study, we focused on two main infections (Esca and Yellowing), and data were gathered from fields that were located in Aquitaine and Burgundy regions, France. Since plant diseases can be diagnosed from the properties of the leaf, we acquired both Red-Green-Blue (RGB) digital image and hyperspectral reflectance data from infected and healthy leaves. Biophysical parameters that were produced by the PROSPECT model inversion together with texture parameters compiled from the literature were deduced. Then we investigated their relationship to damage caused by Yellowing and Esca. This study examined whether spectral and textural data can identify the two diseases through the use of Neural Networks. We obtained an overall accuracy of 99% for both of the diseases when textural and spectral data are combined. These results suggest that, first, biophysical parameters present a valid dimension reduction tool that could replace the use of complete hyperspectral data. Second, remote sensing using spectral reflectance and digital images can make an overall nondestructive, rapid, cost-effective, and reproducible technique to determine diseases in grapevines with a good level of accuracy.

Disease detection and control is one of the main objectives of vineyard research in France. Manual monitoring of diseases is a time consuming operation especially when fields are large. Current research studies aim to develop automatic in-field systems to detect diseases. This study investigated the optimal spectral bands for the design of a dedicated high-resolution multispectral camera embedded on an unmanned aerial vehicle for identifying infected zones in a grapevine field. The target disease was Flavescence dorée, which is infectious, incurable and can result in considerable yield loss. An in-field spectrometry study was performed on four grapevine varieties in the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region in France. Two spectral analysis techniques were proposed for choosing the best spectral bands capable of discriminating healthy from diseased leaves. The first novel approach is a feature selection technique based on the successive projection algorithm (SPA), some spectral pre-processing techniques were jointly investigated. The second approach examines a set of traditional vegetation indices (VI). Support vector machine (SVM) and discriminant analysis (DA) are the two classifiers used in this paper and the accuracy of the results is compared for the two methods of analysis. The best models were computed as a function of the grapevine variety considered. The SPA technique performed better in general with respect to common VIs, the overall classification accuracy was more than 96%. Results demonstrated that employing a feature selection technique based on the SPA algorithm can provide a valid tool for determining the optimal bands that are sensitive to Flavescence dorée grapevine disease and assist in its identification. The benefit behind the presented procedure relies on the possibility of generalizing it for other infections and stresses or even for different crops.

Disease detection and control is thus one of the main objectives of vineyard research in France. Monitoring diseases manually is fastidious and time consuming, so current research aims to develop an automatic detection of vineyard diseases. This project explored the use of a high-resolution multi-spectral camera embedded on a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to identify the infected zones in a field. In-field spectrometry studies were performed to identify the best spectral bands for the sensor design. The best models were found to be the function of the grapevine variety considered and the 520-600-650-690-730-750-800 nm bands were found to be the most efficient for all types of grapevines, with an overall classification accuracy of more than 94%.

Analyses spectrale et texturale de données haute résolution pour la détection automatique des maladies de la vigne: La Flavescence dorée est une maladie contagieuse et incurable de la vigne détectable sur les feuilles. Le projet DAMAV (Détection Automatique des MAladies de la Vigne) a été mis en place, avec pour objectif de développer une solution de détection automatisée des maladies de la vigne à l’aide d’un micro-drone. Cet outil doit permettre la recherche des foyers potentiels de la Flavescence dorée, puis plus généralement de toute maladie détectable sur le feuillage à l’aide d’un outil multispectral dédié haute résolution.Dans le cadre de ce projet, cette thèse a pour objectif de participer à la conception et à l’implémentation du système d’acquisition multispectral et de développer les algorithmes de prétraitement d’images basés sur les caractéristiques spectrales et texturales les plus pertinentes reliées à la Flavescence dorée.Plusieurs variétés de vigne ont été considérées telles que des variétés rouges et blanches; de plus, d’autres maladies que ‘Flavescence dorée’ (FD) telles que Esca et ‘Bois noir’ (BN) ont également été testées dans des conditions de production réelles. Le travail de doctorat a été essentiellement réalisé au niveau feuille et a impliqué une étape d’acquisition suivie d’une étape d’analyse des données.La plupart des techniques d'imagerie, même multispectrales, utilisées pour détecter les maladies dans les grandes cultures ou les vignobles, opèrent dans le domaine du visible. Dans DAMAV, il est conseillé que la maladie soit détectée le plus tôt possible. Des informations spectrales sont nécessaires, notamment dans l’infrarouge. Les réflectances des feuilles des plantes peuvent être obtenues sur les longueurs d'onde les plus courtes aux plus longues. Ces réflectances sont intimement liées aux composants internes des feuilles. Cela signifie que la présence d'une maladie peut modifier la structure interne des feuilles et donc altérer sa signature.Un spectromètre a été utilisé sur le terrain pour caractériser les signatures spectrales des feuilles à différents stades de croissance. Afin de déterminer les réflectances optimales pour la détection des maladies (FD, Esca, BN), une nouvelle méthodologie de conception d'indices de maladies basée sur deux techniques de réduction de dimensions, associées à un classifieur, a été mise en place. La première technique de sélection de variables utilise les Algorithmes Génétiques (GA) et la seconde s'appuie sur l'Algorithme de Projections Successives (SPA). Les nouveaux indices de maladies résultants surpassent les indices de végétation traditionnels et GA était en général meilleur que SPA. Les variables finalement choisies peuvent ainsi être mises en oeuvre en tant que filtres dans le capteur MS.Les informations de réflectance étaient satisfaisantes pour la recherche d’infections (plus que 90% de précision pour la meilleure méthode) mais n’étaient pas suffisantes. Ainsi, les images acquises par l’appareil MS peuvent être ensuite traitées par des techniques bas-niveau basées sur le calcul de paramètres de texture puis injectés dans un classifieur. Plusieurs techniques de traitement de texture ont été testées mais uniquement sur des images couleur. Une nouvelle méthode combinant plusieurs paramètres texturaux a été élaborée pour en choisir les meilleurs. Nous avons constaté que les informations texturales pouvaient constituer un moyen complémentaire non seulement pour différencier les feuilles de vigne saines des feuilles infectées (plus que 85% de précision), mais également pour classer le degré d’infestation des maladies (plus que 74% de précision) et pour distinguer entre les maladies (plus que 75% de précision). Ceci conforte l’hypothèse qu’une caméra multispectrale permet la détection et l’identification de maladies de la vigne en plein champ.