Abstract
Vineyard parcels delimitation is a preliminary but important task to support zoning activities, which can be burdensome and time-consuming when manually performed. In spite of being desirable to overcome such issue, the implementation of a semi-/fully automatic delimitation approach can meet serious development challenges when dealing with vineyards like the ones that prevail in Douro Region (north-east of Portugal), mainly due to the great diversity of parcel/row formats and several factors that can hamper detection as, for example, interrupted rows and inter-row vegetation. Thereby, with the aim of addressing vineyard parcels detection and delimitation in Douro Region, a preliminary method based on segmentation and morphological operations upon high-resolution aerial imagery is proposed. This method was tested in a data set collected from vineyards located at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro(Vila Real, Portugal). The presence of some of the previously mentioned challenging conditions - namely interrupted rows and inter-row grassing - in a few parcels contributed to lower the overall detection accuracy, pointing out the need for future improvements. Notwithstanding, encouraging preliminary results were achieved. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.

Abstract
Advances in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) allowed them to become both flexible and cost-effective. When combined with computer vision data processing techniques they are a good way to obtain high-resolution imagery and 3D information. As such, UAS can be advantageous both for agriculture and forestry areas, where the need for data acquisition at specific times and within a specific time frame is crucial, enabling the extraction of several measurements from different crop types. In this study a low-cost UAS was used to survey an area mainly composed by chestnut trees (Castanea sativa Mill.). Flights were performed at different heights (ranging from 30 to 120 m), in single and double grid flight patterns, and photogrammetric processing was then applied. The obtained information consists of orthophoto mosaics and digital elevation models which enable the measurement of individual tree’s parameters such as tree crown diameter and tree height. Results demonstrate that despite its lower spatial resolution, data from single grid flights carried out at higher heights provided more reliable results than data acquired at lower flight heights. Higher number of images acquired in double grid flights also improved the results. Overall, the obtained results are encouraging, presenting a R2 higher than 0.9 and an overall root mean square error of 44 cm. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.

Abstract
The cost-effectiveness of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) makes them suitable platforms to survey cultural heritage sites. Developments in photogrammetry provide methods capable to generate accurate 3D models out of 2D aerial images. Considering the involved technologies, the purpose of this paper is to document the Chapel of Espiríto Santo: a very relevant monument for Vila Real (Portugal) that is currently located at the campus of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro. The UAS-based aerial imagery survey approach is presented along with photogrammetric process to build chapel’s 3D model. Moreover, two photogrammetric software were compared – Pix4Dmapper Pro and Agisoft Photoscan – in terms of modelling accuracy and functionalities ease of use. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.

Abstract
To differentiate between canopy and vegetation cover is particularly challenging. Nonetheless, it is pivotal in obtaining the exact crops' vegetation when using remote-sensing data. In this article, a method to automatically estimate and extract vineyards' canopy is proposed. It combines vegetation indices and digital elevation models - derived from high-resolution images, acquired using unmanned aerial vehicles - to differentiate between vines' canopy and inter-row vegetation cover. This enables the extraction of relevant information from a specific vineyard plot. The proposed method was applied to data acquired from some vineyards located in Portugal's north-eastern region, and the resulting parameters were validated. It proved to be an effective method when applied with consumer-grade sensors, carried by unmanned aerial vehicles. Moreover, it also proved to be a fast and efficient way to extract vineyard information, enabling vineyard plots mapping for precision viticulture management tasks.

Abstract
Localization and Mapping of autonomous robots in an harsh and unstable environment such as a steep slope vineyard is a challenging research topic. Dead Reckoning systems can fail due to the harsh conditions of the terrain, and the Global Position System can be affected by noise or even be unavailable. Agriculture is moving towards precision agriculture, with advanced monitoring systems and wireless sensor networks. These systems and wireless sensors are installed in the crop field and can be considered relevant landmarks for robot localization. In this paper the distance accuracy provided by bluetooth based sensors is deeply studied and characterized. It is considered a multi antenna receiver bluetooth system and obtained the transfer functions (from Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) to distance estimation) for each set of antenna and sensors. The performance of this technology is compared against Time-of-flight based technologies (Pozyx). The obtained results show that the agricultural wireless sensors can be used as redundant artificial landmarks for localization purposes. Besides, the RSSI characterization allowed to improve the previous results of our Beacon Mapping Procedure (BMP) required for accurate and reliable localization systems. © 2018 IEEE.

Abstract
The intensive use of agricultural machinery is promoting the soil compaction. The use of agricultural robots or autonomous machinery can intensify this problem, due its capacity to replicate the same trajectories. One of the possible strategies to minimize the effects of soil compaction is to control agricultural traffic instead of common random traffic. Since geo-referencing systems are present in almost all field operations it is possible to optimize trajectories to avoid to damage the crop and intensify the soil compaction. The controlled agricultural traffic on farms will not only increase production capacity, the incomes as well as the quality of the soil. In this work a novel approach based on A-star algorithm is proposed to reduce soil compaction in steep slope vineyards. © 2018 IEEE.