Described is a system for determining crop residue fraction. The system includes a color video camera mounted on a mobile platform for generating a two-dimensional (2D) color video image of a scene in front or behind the mobile platform. In operation, the system separates the 2D color video image into three separate one-dimensional (1D) mixture signals for red, green, and blue channels. The three 1D mixture signals are then separated into pure 1D component signals using blind source separation. The 1D component signals are thresholded and converted to 2D binary, pixel-level abundance maps, which can then be integrated to allow the system to determine a total component fractional abundance of crop in the scene. Finally, the system can control a mobile platform, such as a harvesting machine, based on the total component fractional abundance of crop in the scene.
