AI vegetation analysis (AI VRA)

AI vegetation analysis turns a multispectral survey into a ready variable-rate plan in a couple of minutes. The AI Analysis button on the vegetation index panel opens a short wizard; the Luna assistant then selects the most suitable index, zones the field, proposes per-zone doses with an agronomic explanation, and produces a PDF report.

AI can be wrong

The analysis is a decision support tool, not a prescription. Have a qualified agronomist approve the plan before application, and always finalise the spray volume according to the product label.

Prerequisites

The AI Analysis button is available only when all of these are met:

Requirement	Details
Multispectral project	Mavic 3 Multispectral or P4 Multispectral imagery. On RGB-only projects (P4R, M3E, Matrice 4E/4T, Zenmuse P1) the AI buttons are hidden — also when an RGB index (VDVI, NGRDI, ExG, VARI) is shown.
Active subscription	See Subscription.
Field boundary	If the project has none, DroneField offers to create one with AI Boundary.
Internet connection	The analysis runs on the DroneField server.

Monthly quota

Each device includes 10 analyses per month (your administrator can adjust this). A credit is spent only on a successful analysis — if the run fails with an error, your quota is untouched.

The wizard, step by step

1. Crop

Choose the cultivation type — field crop, orchard, vineyard, olive or tea — and the specific crop species. The species is mandatory for field crops and orchards: it is the key input of the phenological analysis.

2. Sowing date or plantation age

Optional — if you skip it, the AI estimates the growth stage from the survey date and location. You can also enter the plant count per hectare to refine the yield estimate.

3. Treatment type

• Foliar fertiliser (liquid)
• Fertiliser granulate (solid)
• Desiccation
• Weed-patch treatment

4. Applicator machine and application volume

Select drone or ground rig, then enter the application volume (l/ha — or kg/ha for granulate).

The volume you enter is the maximum zone dose

The amount you specify already contains the plant-protection product at its prescribed dose. The AI never plans above it: it becomes the dose of the strongest treatment zone.

The result

When the analysis finishes:

• the panel switches to the index Luna selected, with a matching display range;
• the application map opens automatically with the proposed zones — at most 5, where a 0 l/ha zone means no treatment needed (exported as zero rate: 0 in the DJI Rx map, a zero-rate polygon in the ABZ export);
• small isolated cells are merged into the surrounding zone automatically, so the plan stays flyable.

You can edit everything afterwards — zone doses, ranges, grid — the AI result is a starting point, not a locked plan.

Zoning by living-vegetation share (desiccation, weed patches)

For desiccation and weed-patch treatment, zoning is not based on a cell’s average index value but on the share of living vegetation inside the cell.

The reason: an average cannot tell a cell that is “30% still green + 70% dried down” apart from a uniformly half-dry stand — yet the first one needs treatment. In these plans the report’s zone table shows a “Live vegetation” column (in %); the index range shown below it is informational only.

Why doesn’t the top zone / colour scale run to 1?

Because the upper bound is the field’s real maximum (e.g. 0.48) — there are no cells above it, so a band running to 1.0 would promise area that does not exist. This is not a bug: the greenest cells always receive the highest dose (the ranking runs on the living share), and stretching the colour scale to the real range gives you more contrast, not less.

Plan audit

A yellow warning box may appear on the result page — for example “the field is nearly uniform” or “an untreated zone borders a treated one too closely”. This is not an error: it is a statistical sanity check that flags anything the approving expert should look at twice.

PDF report

The Full AI analysis (PDF) button opens a shareable document containing:

• Luna’s analysis and agronomic reasoning
• the index map
• the zone table with planned and actual index ranges (for desiccation and weed-patch plans, with the Live vegetation column)
• a yield estimate, when one can be given reliably
• general nutrient guidance (foliar treatments only — this is guidance, not a deficiency diagnosis)
• an expert approval signature block

An orange “Check before approval” box may appear under the zone table — for example when living vegetation remains in the untreated zone, or a zone ends up empty. Like the plan audit, it supports the expert’s sign-off; it is not an error.

The Last plan button reloads your most recent analysis at any time.

The report also travels with a shared project: the recipient opens it in the browser with the AI Report button — no DroneField installation needed.

Errors and quota questions

Every error message names the cause and the next step, and shows a short support reference (code + time) — include it if you contact support. The raw technical text is under Details. There is no automatic retry.

Symptom	What to do
No active subscription	Click Subscribe in the message — it opens my.dronefield.app.
”AI analysis is not available in this version”	Your DroneField version is out of date. Click Check for updates and install the new version.
Device not registered / not allowed for your account	Click Open account — it opens my.dronefield.app; check your devices and subscription.
Monthly limit reached	The message shows when the limit resets (in local time); Start stays disabled until then.
No internet / server unavailable	Check the connection and try again later; no credit was spent.
Timeout	The server may still have finished the analysis. Wait about a minute and check your quota first — if a credit was spent, reopen the result with Last plan instead of rerunning.
Analysis failed (“Try again”)	The run failed on the server; no credit was spent. Run the analysis again.
Button missing	Check the prerequisites — the AI buttons only appear in multispectral projects.

DroneField

🌱 New to variable-rate spraying? Read the guide: What is variable-rate application? →