Design of an active laser-induced fluorescence observation system from unmanned aerial vehicles for artificial seed-like structures

The EU H2020 I-Seed project aims for sustainable environmental monitoring of topsoil and air above soil environments by employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to distribute, localize and read-out of the fluorescence signal of the artificial I-seeds. Reaction with relevant environmental parameters and process of bio-degradation will induce a change of fluorescence in the artificial seeds, which will be recorded from an airborne platform with sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to identify the concentration of targeted soil parameters, such as mercury, carbon dioxide, humidity and temperature. Remote sensing based laser-induced fluorescence systems are used in atmospheric and environmental monitoring, where the emitted fluorescence is collected at a working distance of couple of meters to hundreds of meters from the zone of interest. However, technology maturation, miniaturization and cost has always been a major bottleneck for developing mini-UAV based active spectroscopic systems. Here we present the design ideas and results of first lab-scale experiments to realize an active laser-induced fluorescence system on UAV platform. Such a system has potential to address not only the sustainable environment monitoring and agricultural production, but also the threats in food security, climate change and sustainable resource management.