Space-enhanced machine learning to improve agrochemical management of crops

The Hawking service uses analysed satellite imagery with the aim of helping growers assess crop health, identify diseases, weeds and pest damage, creating variable rate nutrient/chemical application maps, and helping accurately forecast yields. It allows growers to use targeted agro-chemical applications with the aim of reducing blanket agrochemical input, cutting farm costs and improving yields. It also mitigates the negatives of agrochemical overuse and disease resistance build-up. The service targets growers and farmers all around the world. It uses Earth observation and satellite navigation combined to machine learning techniques in order to geo-reference UAV captured imagery during image acquisition; avoid sensory issues and gather data in all weather; increase the size of the machine learning training dataset for each specific, crop-related problem; perform atmospheric corrections; and fuse UAV and satellite imagery into a high spatial and temporal resolution dataset.