Investigation on Advances of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Application Research in Agriculture and Forestry

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) application in agriculture and forestry has the unique advantages of high efficiency, water and pesticide saving, and strong adaptability to complex terrain. The application research of UAV in agriculture and forestry has shown a fast growing trend. In order to explore the research hotspots and the scientific impact of countries/regions and institutions on UAV application in agriculture and forestry, the relevant literatures in the Web of Science(WoS) core collection database (2011-2020) were collected. The bibliometrics analysis was performed on the journal articles of UAV application in agriculture and forestry based on VOSviewer, WoS analysis tools and Microsoft Excel. The analysis results showed that the number of published papers increased rapidly since 2017, the researches on UAV application in agriculture and forestry were carried out in 94 countries/regions, including1778 institutions. Due to the strong scientific research group in the application of UAV in agriculture and forestry of the United States, China and Australia, a large number of papers had been published, resulting in a great academic influence. Remote sensing was the most widely used technology field of UAV application in agriculture and forestry, mainly involving remote sensing technology, ecological environment science, image processing technology, geological science, etc. Engineering was an important technical field of UAV application in agriculture and forestry, mainly involving control technology, sensor technology and fluid computing modeling technology related to UAV aerial pesticide application.There were 1508 articles and reviews been published in 398 journals, about 1.90% of all journals included in WoS core collection database, indicating that more and more journals paid attention to the application research of UAV in agriculture and forestry. Remote Sensing sponsored by MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) was the journal that published the most of papers, the most cited paper mainly focused on the research status of UAV system in photogrammetry and remote sensing, including sensing, navigation, positioning and general data processing, etc. In addition, the analysis of the research hotspots of UAV application in agriculture and forestry showed that UAV pesticide application, UAV remote sensing of diseases and pests, plant phenotype acquisition were the research hotspots. This study can provide references for innovation research and cooperation between research teams of UAV application in agriculture and forestry.

Keywords

• uav
• web of science
• bibliometrics
• vosviewer
• research situation
• remote sensing
• plant phenotype