N. Markov, D. Yorgov, P. Veleva, A. Petrova, S. Atanasova

1Department of Regional development, Faculty of Economics, Trakia University, 6000 Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
2Department of Agricultural engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Trakia University, 6000 Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

(Manuscript received 24 May 2024; accepted for publication 16 December 2024)

Abstract. With the development of technologies, the possibilities for qualitative assessment of the condition of plants are increasing significantly. The research aims to compare real measurements that are taken simultaneously with portable devices for measuring vegetative indices and with multispectral cameras that perform remote measurements from the air by attaching them to an FPV drone. During the measurements, a part of the vegetative period of wheat was traced. Research methods include ongoing simultaneous measurement with portable devices of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index with PlantPen and Normalized Difference Greenness Index with N-Pen (Photon Systems Instruments, Czech Republic) and with multispectral cameras MAPIR Survey3N NGB (NIR+Green+Blue) and RGN (Red+Green+NIR), which are placed on a DJI drone. The obtained spectral images were processed with specialized software for processing multispectral images. The results show that remote sensing with autonomous aerial vehicles provides a reliable estimate of vegetative indices, which could increase economic efficiency in crop production.