R&D capabilities

When implemented accurately, remote sensing technologies can provide unique understandings of spatial and temporal variability in agriculture.

These technologies offer clear opportunities to increase farm productivity, respond to climatic and biosecurity threats, as well as improve asset management such as water, nitrogen and other crop inputs.

What we do

Through its collaborative R&D network, AARSC provides a gateway to wide ranging agricultural mapping and analysis capabilities, including satellite imagery.

We work with industries to develop new applications for remote sensing, using rigorous R&D methods and a consortium of industry, scientific and commercial expertise.

AARSC supports the development and adoption of remote sensing technologies, such as:

Crop monitoring, forecasting and mapping
  • Yield and quality estimation
  • Pest and disease detection
  • Irrigation management
  • Nutrient use efficiency
  • Crop condition assessments.

AARSC can assist industries in creating, updating or validating spatial mapping technologies, including measuring:

  • Crop production area and extent
  • Varietal discrimination and distribution.
Technology evaluations and calibrations

AARSC conducts independent evaluations of emerging remote sensing technologies to determine how well they support specific industry requirements. These include:

  • Satellite (multispectral, Radar)
  • Airborne (hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal, LiDAR)
  • Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (multispectral, thermal and LiDAR)
  • Ground based and vehicle mounted (hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal, active and passive)

AARSC facilitates scientific expertise to ensure on-farm technologies provide accurate results. This includes undertaking multi-locational and seasonal trials to ensure remote sensing applications are calibrated and validated to deliver benefits in real world farming conditions.

Emergency response assessments

Through the use of historic and current datasets, the AARSC provides immediate response capabilities (technologies and analytics) to assist in the:

  • Detection and rapid response to plant biosecurity incursions.
  • Quantification of crop damage following natural disasters.
Commercialisation support

AARSC supports collaboration between industry, R&D providers, commercial partners and start-ups to generate marketable and adoptable agricultural innovations. The centre works with these groups to:

  • Integrate emerging remote sensing technologies and analytics into real world farming systems.
  • Provide access to on-farm testing facilities for evaluating new technologies and commercial applications.
  • To validate technology effectiveness and cost for industry.

The centre collaborates with the UNE SMART Region Incubator to support regionally-based Agtech start-up industries.

The AARSC is also co-located with UNE's SMART Farm — a 746-hectare commercial property, with farm-wide telemetry delivered via fibre, fixed wireless and satellite NBN and AARNet connectivity. This facility provides an ideal facility to test new technologies in a working farm environment.

AARSC provides support for interpreting results agronomically, and ensuring their adoption on farm.