Remote sensing is the science of gathering information about an area or object without the need to be in direct contact with it, allowing for frequent capturing of detailed information on a global scale. Satellite imagery, for example, is collected for every point on the globe at least four times a day.

Remote sensing relies heavily on multi-spectral imaging, which includes spectral radiation from both the visible light range and frequencies beyond the visible light range, such as infrared. There are multiple sources for this type of imagery but the most common are satellite and airbourne imagery.

Objects have distinct spectral signatures that allows, via remote sensing, identification and measurement of key characteristics. In agriculture, for example, remote sensing provides the ability to identify specific crop types, such as corn or soybeans, determine the crops health and progress by measuring the photosynthetic capacity and water content and combined with historical data, crop phenology, models and ancillary data predict the yield the crops will achieve.

 The key technology challenges, associated with remote sensing, involve the processing and analysis of massive amounts of data and include:

• image processing
• data extraction
• data analysis
• operational delivery of real-time intelligence data

GDA’s heritage of Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) funding and collaboration with the USDA, NGA (National Geospatial Intelligence Agency), NASA and USGS, has provided GDA the benefit of tackling these challenges outside the pressures of the commercial markets.

Projects, ranging from operational delivery of agricultural crop mapping, crop health monitoring and yield forecasts for multiple domestic and international locations for the USDA/Foreign Agriculture Service to the analysis and monitoring of riparian buffers for the Chesapeake Bay Program, have provided GDA the ideal environment for the development of key proprietary methodologies, algorithms, processes and systems required to overcome these challenges.

In mid 2009, GDA made their technology available to commercial clients for the first time.  GDA is committed to expanding availability to additional commercial clients and markets going forward, while maintaining focus on the agricultural, environmental and resource management markets.

GDA is the only commercial agribusiness vendor to utilize medium and high resolution satellite imagery, in tandem on a large scale. The example to the left visually demonstrates this advantage.

These images compare the same location using low resolution imagery from the MODIS sensor at 250m resolution, the industry standard and medium resolution imagery from the P6-AWiFS sensor, used by GDA, at 56m resolution, the maximum resolution for each system. These images are the starting point for analysis and provide the basis for accuracy of the results.