Unmanned aerial vehicle application for mapping individual plants: the case of the Nebrodi beech forest

The UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are small unmanned aircraft remote controlled electronically, commonly called "drones", which can serve as a vector to carry one or more sensors for georeferenced digital image capture. The development of these platforms is begun in the 50s for military purposes and is today successfully applied in the civil sphere with levels of technology and higher performance. It is a remote sensing technique to the scale of detail that allows for monitoring, measuring and mapping of several environmental data in a short time. The use of NDIR sensors (Non Dispersive Infrared sensor) for the detection of plant cover, allows discriminating plant species, mapping individ…