Development of a lightweight hyperspectral mapping system for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are rapidly becoming an essential tool in small scale remote sensing. Nowadays, aerial RGB ortho-images and Digital Surface Models (DSM) are routinely produced using small and economical UAVs, that are typically capable of carrying 1–2 kg of payloads. Currently, the optical sensors on such UAVs are mostly limited to RGB or ColorInfraRed cameras, as there are no commercial hyperspectral mapping systems available for this payload range. The most lightweight commercial systems weigh closer to 3 kg, as they exploit rather heavy external flight computers and reflective grating spectrographs. In this poster, we present a design of a miniaturized UAV hyperspectral mapping system and some preliminary airborne data.