Cost-effectiveness and performance of optical satellites constellation for Precision Agriculture

prerequisite of precision agriculture is monitoring of field variability, which is usually detected by means of proximal or remote sensors. Satellite images can easily provide information about such variability in a relatively short time. The present work aims to evaluate the main satellite constellations according to precision agriculture requirements, and to estimate their cost effectiveness in relation to expected precision agriculture benefits. Performance of satellite constellations were evaluated in terms of spatial resolution, spectral resolution, radiometric resolution, bandwidth and revisit time. Then, cost effectiveness of satellite constellations was retrieved for each constellation, calculating the break-even point where all costs are completely recovered by benefits. Preliminary results show how satellite image price is mainly correlated with spatial resolution and minimum order area. Satellite constellations with the lowest break-even point are Sentinel and Landsat, even though they represent a compromise of resolution features.