Small object is one of the primary challenges in the field of object detection, which is notably pronounced to the detection in the images from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Existing detectors based on deep-learning methods usually apply the feature extraction networks with a large down-sampling factor to obtain higher-level features. However, such big stride tends to make the feature information of small objects become the little point or even vanish in the low-resolution feature maps due to the limitation of pixels. Therefore, a novel structure called Multi-branch Parallel Feature Pyramid Networks (MPFPN) is proposed in this article, which aims to extract more abundant feature information of the objects with a small size. Specifically, the parallel branch is designed to recover the features that missed in the deeper layers. Meanwhile, a supervised spatial attention module (SSAM) is applied to weaken the impact of background noise inference and focus object information. Furthermore, we adopt cascade architecture in the Fast R-CNN stage for a more powerful localization capability. Experiments on the public drone-based datasets named VisDrone-DET demonstrate that our method achieves competitive performance compared with other state-of-the-art detection algorithms.

Crop height is an essential parameter used to monitor overall crop growth, forecast crop yield, and estimate crop biomass in precision agriculture. However, individual maize segmentation is the prerequisite for precision field monitoring, which is a challenging task because the maize stalks are usually occluded by leaves between adjacent plants, especially when they grow up. In this study, we proposed a novel method that combined seedling detection and clustering algorithms to segment individual maize plants from UAV-borne LiDAR and RGB images. As seedlings emerged, the images collected by an RGB camera mounted on a UAV platform were processed and used to generate a digital orthophoto map. Based on this orthophoto, the location of each maize seedling was identified by extra-green detection and morphological filtering. A seed point set was then generated and used as input for the clustering algorithm. The fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm was used to segment individual maize plants. We computed the difference between the maximum elevation value of the LiDAR point cloud and the average elevation value of the bare digital terrain model (DTM) at each corresponding area for individual plant height estimation. The results revealed that our height estimation approach test on two cultivars produced the accuracy with R² greater than 0.95, with the mean square error (RMSE) of 4.55 cm, 3.04 cm, and 3.29 cm, as well as the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 3.75%, 0.91%, and 0.98% at three different growth stages, respectively. Our approach, utilizing UAV-borne LiDAR and RGB cameras, demonstrated promising performance for estimating maize height and its field position.

Accurate and rapid monitoring of maize seedling growth is critical in early breeding decision making, field management, and yield improvement. However, the number and uniformity of seedlings are conventionally determined by manual evaluation, which is inefficient and unreliable. In this study, we proposed an automatic assessment method of maize seedling growth using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) RGB imagery. Firstly, high-resolution images of maize at the early and late seedling stages (before and after the third leaf) were acquired using the UAV RGB system. Secondly, the maize seedling center detection index (MCDI) was constructed, resulting in a significant enhancement of the color contrast between young and old leaves, facilitating the segmentation of maize seedling centers. Furthermore, the weed noise was removed by morphological processing and a dual-threshold method. Then, maize seedlings were extracted using the connected component labeling algorithm. Finally, the emergence rate, canopy coverage, and seedling uniformity in the field at the seedling stage were calculated and analyzed in combination with the number of seedlings. The results revealed that our approach showed good performance for maize seedling count with an average R² greater than 0.99 and an accuracy of F1 greater than 98.5%. The estimation accuracies at the third leaf stage (V3) for the mean emergence rate and the mean seedling uniformity were 66.98% and 15.89%, respectively. The estimation accuracies at the sixth leaf stage (V6) for the mean seedling canopy coverage and the mean seedling uniformity were 32.21% and 8.20%, respectively. Our approach provided the automatic monitoring of maize growth per plot during early growth stages and demonstrated promising performance for precision agriculture in seedling management.

Due to imaging and lighting directions, shadows are inevitably formed in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images. This causes shadowed regions with missed and occluded information, such as color and texture details. Shadow detection and compensation from remote sensing images is essential for recovering the missed information contained in these images. Current methods are mainly aimed at processing shadows with simple scenes. For UAV remote sensing images with a complex background and multiple shadows, problems inevitably occur, such as color distortion or texture information loss in the shadow compensation result. In this paper, we propose a novel shadow removal algorithm from UAV remote sensing images based on color and texture equalization compensation of local homogeneous regions. Firstly, the UAV imagery is split into blocks by selecting the size of the sliding window. The shadow was enhanced by a new shadow detection index (SDI) and threshold segmentation was applied to obtain the shadow mask. Then, the homogeneous regions are extracted with LiDAR intensity and elevation information. Finally, the information of the non-shadow objects of the homogeneous regions is used to restore the missed information in the shadow objects of the regions. The results revealed that the average overall accuracy of shadow detection is 98.23% and the average F1 score is 95.84%. The average color difference is 1.891, the average shadow standard deviation index is 15.419, and the average gradient similarity is 0.726. The results have shown that the proposed method performs well in both subjective and objective evaluations.

The information fusion technique can integrate a large amount of data and knowledge representing the same real-world object and obtain a consistent, accurate, and useful representation of that object. The data may be independent or redundant, and can be obtained by different sensors at the same time or at different times. A suitable combination of investigative methods can substantially increase the profit of information in comparison with that from a single sensor. Multi-sensor information fusion has been a key issue in sensor research since the 1970s, and it has been applied in many fields. For example, manufacturing and process control industries can generate a lot of data, which have real, actionable business value. The fusion of these data can greatly improve productivity through digitization. The goal of this special issue is to report innovative ideas and solutions for multi-sensor information fusion in the emerging applications era, focusing on development, adoption, and applications.

Dynamic target threat assessment can be regarded as a classical multiple attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) issue. Triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs) can fully describe imprecise and fuzzy information for target threat assessment. Thus, to consider the changing trend of target detection information in a certain period and the influence of commanders’ psychological factors on target threat assessment results, this study proposes an extended CPT-TODIM method based on possibility theory (PT-CPT-TODIM) to solve target threat assessment. Of note, the CRITIC method is used to determine the attribute weights of the probability mean matrix and the probability standard deviation matrix, which can make the target threat assessment result more rational. A numerical example and comparison analysis demonstrate the efficiency and feasibility of the newly proposed CPT-TODIM method.