Development of an airborne hyperspectral scanning camera system for agricultural missions

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of an airborne pushbroom imaging system that yields hyperspectral images for agricultural monitoring missions. It reports the optical payload design and assembly during prototyping and operation. The operational design and requirements to successfully deploy the payload and conduct its missions are given. The other subsystem components such as the onboard computer, gimbals, chassis, and battery packs, which are all necessary for the airborne deployment and telemetry data acquisition required in processing the raw captures into level 1 images are further examined. It shows the post-processing technique tested on captures from a prototype and sample drone data. By flying a hyperspectral imager on a drone (DJI Matrice 600 Pro), we get the advantage of zero cloud cover over the agricultural area of interest, and imaging on-demand, for example, during infestation or right after calamities.