Uashub: Online Research Collaboration Portal for UAS Data.

UASHub: Online Research Collaboration Portal for UAS Data

Although advancement of UAS-based remote sensing technology enables collection of geospatial data at spatial and temporal scales previously unobtainable using traditional remote sensing technologies, one of the biggest constraints to the wide adoption of UAS technology in agricultural applications is lack of capabilities to extract/discover meaningful information from big data obtained from UAS. Visualizing, analyzing, and interpreting the big data acquired from UAS in a timely manner is a critical component in the adoption of this technology into plant breeding and agriculture research programs, however, little attention has been placed on this topic to date. We propose to design a novel and efficient workflow to enable advanced analysis of UAS data for agricultural research and plant phenotyping for breeding. Data acquired from UAS is inherently big due to its low flying altitude with significant overlap between images. The large volume of data not only requires a lot of ‘digital storage’ space, but also creates challenges in analysis and interpretation. To address these issues, we developed the UASHub that was built using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) packages. UAS data visualization tools (both in 2D and 3D) and advanced phenotypic measurement tools were developed so that end users can access UAS data and tools without download big UAS data or installing software packages. The UASHub and its capabilities will be discussed in this presentation.