Feral Cotton Habitat Prediction Model and Detection with UAV Remote Sensing

The main objective of this study is to present a framework that efficiently locates the feral cotton plant in the Southern Texas cotton production regions, so as to reduce the time and economic costs of its removal. The GIS network analysis tool is applied to estimate the most likely routes for the cotton transportation, and a GIS model is created to identify and visualize the potential area of feral cotton growth. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is proposed to scan and analyze the potential area in order to detect the precise location of the feral cotton plant for the subsequent removal. In this study the UAV only scanned limited samples of potential feral cotton growth area due to budget constraint, the results of which is used to validate the outcome of the GIS model.