Hyperspectral imaging sensors for UAVs are tiny

Headwall Photonics, a supplier of high performance integrated systems for spectral imaging and chemical sensing solutions, announced the availability of the Micro-Hyperspec, the latest in the company's line of award-winning hyperspectral imaging solutions.

The Micro-Hyperspec sensor features exceptional spectral and spatial resolution in a very compact, robust form factor which was designed to meet the rigid size, weight, and performance requirements for deployment on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGV).

The market for remote sensing technology on UAV platforms is growing at an exceptional rate.

According to John Antoniades, director of remote sensing, Advanced Technologies Group at BAE Systems "hyperspectral imaging is a key strategic technology within the DoD community, providing support for a range of applications from battle-space target tracking to border surveillance to spectral tagging".

"The ability to place high performance hyperspectral sensors on UAV platforms is a key area of interest".

"The Micro-Hyperspec product line was specifically designed to meet the needs of the DoD organizations that are placing considerable emphasis on the deployment of Tier 1 and Tier 2 UAV platforms".

"We have leveraged over 12 years of experience building hyperspectral systems for the military and have designed key features into the Micro-Hyperspec to provide exceptional imaging performance, enhanced field of view, and flight path efficiency" said David Bannon, vice president of sales and marketing at Headwall Photonics.

"We conducted extensive research and drove the technical specifications to deliver industry-leading performance for a wide range of harsh operating environments".

In order to achieve superb imaging, the Micro-Hyperspec design offers very high signal-to- noise capabilities with very low stray light.

The design of the Micro-Hyperspec is based on Headwall's patented, all-reflective, concentric imaging spectrometer.

The optical performance of this very small hyperspectral imaging sensor is achieved through the utilization of high efficiency, aberration- corrected holographic diffraction gratings.

As a Cots (commercial off-the-shelf) product offering application-specific performance, customers may select either the Micro-Hyperspec VNIR sensor (350/400 to 1000nm) or Micro-Hyperspec NIR sensor (900-1700nm).

Custom spectral ranges are also available.

The Micro-Hyperspec is offered as a spectrograph allowing for a high degree of customization or as an integrated hyperspectral instrument consisting of a high efficiency imaging spectrograph, customized fore-optics, and high performance CCD detector.

In addition, Headwall provides a completely integrated solution by mounting, aligning, and testing for deployment in a variety of harsh application environments.