Use of drones and thermal sensors to find Xylella before it destroys a field of olive trees

REDoX (Remote Early Detection of Xylella) is the title of the project proposed and coordinated by the Technological Aerospace Cluster (DTA) and admitted to funding by the Ministry of Economic Development. The project has the objective to design and implement a process and the related tools (sensors) and measurement procedures (flight profile) to monitor the diffusion of the bacterium that is destroying the olive trees of Puglia (and of other EU region).

The project develops a set of technologies and procedures for the collection, acquisition, transmission, storage, processing, computing and sharing of remote data. Data are collected by digital sensors mounted on aerial vehicles (manned and unmanned) and by terrestrial platforms for the identification of olive trees infected by Xylella phastidiosa even before the onset of symptoms visible to the naked eye. Innovative algorithms will be developed by CNR (starting from preliminary valuable algorithms) and implemented and optimized by Planetek Italia, an international leader in the use of satellite data collection and analysis.

Enav (in collaboration with D-Flight), will design and implement specific U-Space services for precision farming. The operational base will be Grottaglie airport.

For more information: https://www.dtascarl.org/en/progettidta/redox/