11 research outputs found
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FAMILY OF LIGHTWEIGHT AND WIDE SWATH UAV CAMERA SYSTEMS AROUND AN INNOVATIVE DUAL-SENSOR ON-SINGLE-CHIP DETECTOR
Together with a Belgian industrial consortium VITO has developed the lightweight camera system MEDUSA. It combines high
spatial resolution with a wide swath to support missions for large scale mapping and disaster monitoring applications. MEDUSA has
been designed to be operated on a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle flying in the stratosphere. The camera system contains a
custom designed CMOS imager with 2 sensors (each having 10000 × 1200 pixels) on 1 chip. One sensor is panchromatic, one is
equipped with colour filters. The MEDUSA flight model camera has passed an extensive test campaign and is ready to conduct its
maiden flight. First airborne test flights with an engineering model version of the camera have been executed to validate the
functionality and the performance of the camera. An image stitching work flow has been developed in order to generate an image
composite in near real time of the acquired images. The unique properties of the dual-sensor-on-single-chip detector triggered the
development of 2 new camera designs which are currently in preparation. MEDUSA-low is a modified camera system optimised for
compatibility with more conventional UAV systems with a payload capacity of 5–10 kg flying at an altitude around 1 km. Its camera
acquires both panchromatic and colour images. The MEDUSA geospectral camera is an innovative hyperspectral imager which is
equipped with a spatially varying spectral filter installed in front of one of the two sensors. It acquires both hyperspectral and broad
band high spatial resolution image data from one and the same camera
THE GEOSPECTRAL CAMERA: A COMPACT AND GEOMETRICALLY PRECISE HYPERSPECTRAL AND HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION IMAGER
Small unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly being employed for environmental monitoring at local scale, which drives the
demand for compact and lightweight spectral imagers. This paper describes the geospectral camera, which is a novel compact imager
concept. The camera is built around an innovative detector which has two sensor elements on a single chip and therefore offers the
functionality of two cameras within the volume of a single one. The two sensor elements allow the camera to derive both spectral
information as well as geometric information (high spatial resolution imagery and a digital surface model) of the scene of interest. A
first geospectral camera prototype has been developed. It uses a linear variable optical filter which is installed in front of one of the
two sensors of the MEDUSA CMOS imager chip. A accompanying software approach has been developed which exploits the
simultaneous information of the two sensors in order to extract an accurate spectral image product. This method has been
functionally demonstrated by applying it on image data acquired during an airborne acquisition