ACRL got an SBIR Phase 1 award from NSF to work with IntelinAir and the Illinois Laboratory for Agricultural Remote Sensing to develop an aerial weed scout to isolate weed clusters in crops, and facilitate the effective and timely removal of these weeds.
Together with Professor Lei Tian and Dr. Liujun Li, ACRL undergraduate researcher Ishaan Pakrasi is working on an algorithm to analyze visible and infrared imagery to examine the spectral reflectance response and key features of the plant, weed, and soil. This algorithm will be used in conjunction with the IntelinAir platform that runs L1 adaptive control in its autopilot. IntelinAir was founded to develop data drones for precision farming and has chosen to commercialize the L1 robust adaptive control technology developed by ACRL members at UIUC.