**2. Methodology**

#### **2.1 Study site**

The study was developed in the experimental fields of the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering at the Universidad Tecnica de Manabí and Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIAP), Santa Ana town, Provinces of Manabí Ecuador (**Figure 1**). In the area of study there are different uses and soil cover, highlighting bare soils and permanent and short cycle experimental crops.

#### **2.2 Flight platform and sensors**

The aerial platform for image acquisition consisted of the UAV EBEE SQ. This SENSEFLY equipment is an advanced drone for agricultural use built around the

*RGB Spectral Indices for the Analysis of Soil Protection by Vegetation Cover against Erosive… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95055*

**Figure 1.** *Study area location.*

revolutionary Parrot Sequoia camera. This multispectral sensor is a fully integrated solution in the UAV. Parrot Sequoia captures the Bands Red, Green, Red Edge (RE) and Near Infrared (NIR), and an RGB camera is also incorporated with the aim of generating an orthomosaic that supports crop analysis, as it takes the true colors of the terrain. The set is incorporated with a sunlight sensor that is located at the top of the EBEE which measures the intensity of sunlight at the time of the flight allowing normalization measurements made on different days with different light intensities, so multitemporal analyses can be performed on both cloudy and sunny days [14]. The RGB camera product was used for this research.
