Close Range Spectral Imaging for Disease Detection in Plants Using Autonomous Platforms: a Review on Recent Studies

Purpose of Review
A short introduction to the spectral imaging (SI) of plants along with a comprehensive overview of the recent research works related to disease detection in plants using autonomous phenotyping platforms is provided. Key benefits and challenges of SI for plant disease detection on robotic platforms are highlighted.
Recent Findings
SI is becoming a potential tool for autonomous platforms for non-destructive plant assessment. This is because it can provide information on the plant pigments such as chlorophylls, anthocyanins and carotenoids and supports quantification of biochemical parameters such as sugars, proteins, different nutrients, water and fat content. A plant suffering from diseases will exhibit different physicochemical parameters compared with a healthy plant, allowing the SI to capture those differences as a function of reflected or absorbed light.
Summary
Potential of SI to non-destructively capture physicochemical parameters in plants makes it a key technique to support disease detection on autonomous platforms. SI can be broadly used for crop disease detection by quantification of physicochemical changes in the plants.