Farmland Selection and Mapping Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (uav)

ABSTRACT Accurate quantification of the size of a land/site and its properties is a very important factor that should be considered when making the choice of land/site to be used for any specific function. To engage in a profitable mechanized and precision farming project requires a large area of land. Therefore, one needs to know the exact size and properties of the land. Getting these details by the traditional means consumes time, energy and has less accuracy. In an attempt to increase efficiency, this project employs the use of data gotten from the field and satellite images to get necessary details of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka farmland. The Ground Control Points (GCPs) were collected onsite with GPS Status and Toolbox android app. The satellite images of the farmland were obtained from Google Earth Pro by taking a snipe of the farmland and its surrounding areas. The images captured were uploaded to QGIS software. With the QGIS software, the images were georeferenced using the GCPs (Point1 = 7° 24` 55.40``E, 6° 51` 48.88``N; Point2 = 7° 24` 43.67``E, 6° 52` 09.55``N; Point3 = 7° 25` 26.45``E, 6° 51` 50.19``N; Point4 = 7° 25 18.72E, 6° 51 00.67N). The result is a digitized orthomosaic map of the farmland. The orthomosaic map have the boundaries well developed. From the map, the size attributes (perimeter = 3,560 m, area = 533.042.054 sqm) of the farmland were also gotten.