Mississippi State Alumnus: Spring 2000

Mississippi State University has become a national leader in a technology that was the stuff of science fiction just a few short years ago.

Remote sensing- the use of satellites or high-altitude aircraft to observe and record data about the earth from distant vantage points- is being used for applications ranging from the cotton field to the golf course.

"Remote sensing technology has been around for more than 30 years," said David Shaw, director of MSU's Remote Sensing Technologies Center. "Although military and wide-scale land change were the first major applications, the recent advances in resolution and computing power have made possible the development of commercial applications in agriculture. The technology is continuing to gain importance for farmers."

Four-wheeler mounted GPS units such as this one being used by David Shaw reduce the amount of time needed to do a survey of a field.

Shaw is one of several scientists with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station who have been helping the state's farmers use remote sensing, global positioning systems (GPS), and geographic information systems (GIS) to improve the efficiency of their operations since the early 1990s. Among their uses are the production of grid maps to pinpoint where specific amounts and types of fertilizer and pesticides are needed in a field. Using that information, farmers can save money on agricultural chemical applications while providing their plants with the precise nutrients they need and reducing the amount of chemicals in the environment.

"These technologies literally are allowing farmers to manage their farms by the foot rather than by the field," Shaw said.

Other researchers with MSU's Forest and Wildlife Research Center have pioneered the use of remote sensing technology in forest management. A timber inventory research project recently has been initiated to determine the extent, approximate age classes, and timber volume of forests in Oktibbeha, Winston, Clay, and Choctaw counties. The MSU scientists are using periodic satellite images of forestland taken since 1972 and are working with industry cooperator Veridian-ERIM International.

Aerial images such as this one of the Starkville/MSU area provide land-use data.

"After reviewing the changes in the forest, an inventory on the ground begins using global positioning system units to locate plots selected from satellite image analysis," said associate professor of forestry David Evans. "One of the things we will be determining is how close the information derived from satellite data is to the actual conditions on the ground."

The final stage of the project will be the development of an interactive web site where an individual can find information about the timber resources in a particular county or region.

"The pilot project involves only four counties, but it is designed so it can be carried out with larger groups of counties, entire states, or nationally," Evans said.

While the Mississippi State scientists currently are working with forest landowners and farmers, remote-sensing technology is finding applications beyond the farm and forest. The Remote Sensing Technologies Center was established in 1999 to support both agricultural and non-agricultural efforts.

Forest management seniors Scott Taylor, right, of Weir and Jeremiah Russell of Collinsville use a field data recorder with an integrated GPS to record tree measurements and map the accurate location of a forest plot. Their work is part of current remote sensing research in the College of Forest Resources.

"The center is an outgrowth of remote sensing work that has been done by the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, the Forest and Wildlife Research Center, and the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center at MSU," Shaw said. "It also is building on relationships the university has with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA, and other government agencies."

Helping engineers with roadway design, construction and maintaince is an important part of the center's mission. Scientists with the center also are studying how remote sensing technology can be used to streamline and improve transportation infrastructure planning and environment assessments. Future RSTC projects will include adapting the technology for use by utility companies.

"Our goals include making Mississippi a leader in the use of remote sensing technology to the transportation infrastructure in the U.S.," Shaw said.

More information on the RSTC at Mississippi State can be found on the Web at www.rstc.msstate.edu.

Space tech helped Old Waverly prep for Women's Open

Milton Wardlaw, Bill Colloredo, and Brian Ward discuss the GPS mapping of the Old Waverly Golf Course.

This past summer, Bill Colloredo had to get his place ready for some serious drop-in company. Between May 31 and June 6, the course superintendent at the Old Waverly Golf Course helped host the more than 100,000 spectators for the U.S. Golf Association Women's Open. Part of his job was to ensure that the entire facility in West Point was in top shape for the players, their audience, and the TV crew that handled the nationally broadcast event.

Assisted by a small army of volunteers, the Old Waverly staff constantly mowed grass, raked bunkers, and performed other maintenance on areas where play was not taking place.

To avoid interfering with the publicly viewed portions of the competition, their work on the 180-acre course had to be precisely timed. In order to accomplish this, they were aided by Euel Coats and a support team from nearby Mississippi State using technology and computer software initially developed to assist farmers.

A professor of weed science, Coats helps train students in the university's nationally recognized golf and sports turf management program.

"Euel helped us plan for the tournament," Colloredo said. "When we began measuring areas and timing different tasks, he suggested using new technology to make the planning more precise."

Coats and Michael S. Cox, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences, proposed that Old Waverly employ a global positioning system to help map the course. Based around data signals broadcast from orbiting satellites, GPS enables the precise marking of ground objects.

Cox, who teaches courses on the uses of GPS in crop management, enlisted the help of graduate students Brian D. Ward of Drew and Milton C. Wardlaw of Batesville. Armed with a hand-held computer and a backpack containing an antenna and other satellite downlink equipment, Ward and Wardlaw spent about 40 hours walking the greens, bunkers, fairways, and other parts of the par-72 course.

As they walked, a position signal traveled from satellites to their receiver. With the information, the students produced detailed maps for each hole and a large grid of the entire course. The end result is a series of displays that can be used to locate virtually anything-even individual water sprinkler heads.

"Many of our volunteers didn't know the location of shutoff valves and other such things," Colloredo said. "With these maps, I could circle a piece of equipment and no one would have a problem finding it when needed."

Location was easy to pinpoint because the maps are divided into grids with vertical columns designated by letters and horizontal columns labeled with numbers. Security and medical personnel also benefited.

"Detailed maps of the cart paths throughout the course enable us to 'see' the fastest route to take to respond to an emergency," Colloredo said.

A few golf courses around the nation have used GPS to generate maps, but Colloredo said he believes the Old Waverly project is the most ambitious to date.

"What Mississippi State has done for us is state-of-the-art," he said. "When superintendents at other courses see what we have, they also will appreciate the benefits of these maps for maintenance and other applications."

That outlook pleases Ward and Wardlaw, both of whom plan to use their MSU training to pursue careers in the application of GPS technology to agriculture.

"Work with golf courses would be especially beneficial during the winter when fields are too wet to be accessible," Wardlaw said.