In Arizona, the Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture group of the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy office has built a scanner that is measuring the individual characteristics of thousands of energy sorghum plants growing underneath it. This research is designed to speed up the pace of bringing biofuels to market by literally saving time.
Weighing over 30 tons and riding 50 feet above the ground, the TERRA scanner can collect as much data in a half-day as a single person could gather with a handheld scanner in five weeks. The data collected will be publicly accessible and the researchers expect it to be mined for years to come.
The team is also using improved cameras and imaging systems that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light to pick up details such as the temperature of a plant’s foliage, the amount of chlorophyll it contains and the surface area of its developing leaves.