Novel Sensors for Precision Agriculture Application

Dear Colleagues,

Precision agriculture involves interventions to irrigate, fertilize, and care only when and where needed, therefore without wasting water or limiting chemical interventions. Therefore, systematically having reliable and ready data is essential for planning effective and timely interventions.

On the other hand, precision agriculture aims to implement systems and methodologies to produce more with fewer resources, while maintaining high-quality standards. This approach has a double advantage: firstly, farms can optimize their efforts and resources, reduce costs, consumption, and waste, increasing the productivity of the farmed field; secondly, but more importantly, agricultural activities become more environmental friendly.

Despite the indisputable advantages of precision agriculture, more than 50 years after its introduction, it is currently limited to large agricultural lands and farmers with considerable financial resources. It is our opinion that precision agriculture will only be truly useful to the cultivator and the environment if it is also accessible to small- and medium-sized farms. For this reason, it is essential to develop new sensors and techniques that allow access to precision agriculture methodologies in a simple and cheaper way.

This Special Issue aims to bring together recent research and developments regarding new sensors to be used in the field of agriculture. Papers covering recent, but not limited, research and developments on the following topics are expected:

• Optical sensors: hyperspectral, multispectral, fluorescence, and thermal sensing;
• Sensors for in vivo plant monitoring;
• Sensors for the detection of microorganisms and pest management;
• Airborne sensors (e.g., UAVs);
• Sensors for unmanned agricultural vehicles;
• Multisensor systems;
• WiFi sensor networks in agriculture;
• Algorithms for managing data of sensor networks or multisensory;
• Sensors for the detection of fruit maturations;
• Sensors for fruit quality determination;
• Sensors for weed control;
• Meteorological sensors;
• Soil sensors;
• Sensors for CO₂ detection.

Dr. Giuseppe Schirripa Spagnolo
Guest Editor

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• precision agriculture
• precision farming
• environmental
• sensors technology
• metrology
• sensors and measurement techniques
• data analysis
• decision support