The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) is procuring Airborne Real-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance (ARCHER) systems to increase their search-and-rescue mission capability. These systems are being installed on a fleet of Gippsland GA-8 aircraft, and will position CAP to gain realworld mission experience with the application of hyperspectral sensor and processing technology to search and rescue. The ARCHER system design, data processing, and operational concept leverage several years of investment in hyperspectral technology research and airborne system demonstration programs by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).Each ARCHER system consists of a NovaSol-designed, pushbroom, visible/near-infrared (VNIR) hyperspectral imaging (HSI) sensor, a co-boresighted visible panchromatic high-resolution imaging (HRI) sensor, and a CMIGITS-III GPS/INS unit in an integrated sensor assembly mounted inside the GA-8 cabin. ARCHER incorporates an on-board data processing system developed by Space Computer Corporation (SCC) to perform numerous real-time processing functions including data acquisition and recording, raw data correction, target detection, cueing and chipping, precision image geo-registration, and display and dissemination of image products and target cue information. A ground processing station is provided for post-flight data playback and analysis. This paper describes the requirements and architecture of the ARCHER system, including design, components, software, interfaces, and displays. Key sensor performance characteristics and real-time data processing features are discussed in detail. The use of the system for detecting and geo-locating ground targets in real-time is demonstrated using test data collected in Southern California in the fall of 2004.
PHIRST Light is a visible and near-infrared (VNIR) hyperspectral imaging sensor that has been assembled at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) using off-the-shelf components. It consists of a Dalsa 1M60 camera mated to a CRI VariSpec liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) and a conventional 75mm Pentax lens. This system can be thought of as the modern equivalent of a filter-wheel sensor. Historically, the problem with such sensors has been that images for different wavelengths are collected at different times. This causes spectral correlation problems when the camera is not perfectly still during the collection time for all bands (such as when it is deployed on an airborne platform). However, the PHIRST Light sensor is hard mounted in a Twin Otter aircraft, and is mated to a TrueTime event capture board, which records the precise GPS time of each image frame. Combining this information with the output of a CMIGITS INS/GPS unit permits precise coregistration of images from multiple wavelengths, and allows the formation of a conventional hyperspectral image cube.In this paper we present an overview of the sensor and its deployment, describe the processing steps required to produce coregistered hyperspectral cubes, and show detection results for targets viewed during the Aberdeen Collection Experiment (ACE).
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