appearance. A perfect example of this is camouflage, as Bannon explained: ‘In a military environment there may be trucks or equipment that have been camouflaged in order to look like the surrounding vegetation and terrain. Te netting itself, however, has a uniquely different chemical signature to leaves, for example, and so spectral imaging through the use of diffraction grating allows us to take a look and really understand what it is we’re seeing.’ Tis is a prime example, given that the
hyperspectral technology was first applied within the military. While it takes, on average, between 10 and 15 years for these types of technology advances that develop in the military industry to roll out into the commercial world, Headwall was fortunate in that its facilities have an inherent ability to design and manufacture these diffraction gratings and build these into hyperspectral and multispectral sensor products. Due to its unique position, Headwall has been able to drive the market and introduce spectral imaging into the company’s three key areas of focus – laboratories, remote sensing, and process industries. Tese three sectors are critical application areas
that are oſten subject to government regulation. Within the food industry, for example, companies need to have a strict level of quality control over their process flow if they are to produce high- quality foods that are safe for people to consume. A basic example in that market sector is the process line, where raw materials are manipulated into finished goods. During that process, a piece of metal may break away from the equipment and fall into the process flow. Spectral imaging allows processors to take a closer look at that process flow and quickly identify and remove the anomaly. Another example would be the separation of a grape harvest from surrounding sticks and leaves, etc. ‘Spectral imaging technology has some great applications in industries that are focused on a particular quality aspect of their product,’ commented Bannon. ‘But the applications aren’t limited to that space. In the remote sensing world, for example, users can gain a greater knowledge and understanding of certain environments. Where previously they were limited to high-definition video on manned aircraſt, users can utilise low cost sensor and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV platforms) to identify invasive species within a specific zone, or determine where an expensive fertiliser should be used.’ Whether aboard a UAV at 500 meters altitude or
on a high-volume production floor, hyperspectral sensing has come of age and is now viewed as a
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standard capability to provide users key information about their surroundings.
View from above Tere has been a lot of growth in the airborne deployment of spectral imaging sensors, especially on hand-launched unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Te advantage of these platforms is that users can fly over specific areas of land and perform trend analyses, and hopefully mitigate any problems that are identified. Headwall Photonics – especially within its European operation – has been able to take advantage of this environmental interest in flying multi-rotor UAVs. Being able to design and manufacture very unique optical elements has allowed Headwall to build sensor systems that are small enough to be deployed on these vehicles. ‘We’ve designed technology that is highly
Technology is
moving on from typical machine vision cameras and into the advanced field of spectral imaging
integrated with these flight platforms, and users are able to accumulate a lot of data for applications such as precision agriculture, and mineral and mining exploration,’ said Bannon. ‘It is generally accepted that the larger the instrument, the wider the field of view on the ground, or conveyer belt. Part of Headwall’s success in this area is that we have unique, patented imaging sensor designs that are relatively small while eliminating any image aberrations within the sensors’ field of view. We designed our sensors by creating these specialised diffraction gratings that eliminate image degradations known as “keystone” and “smile”. A powerful advantage is that these sensors are built for harsh environments without any transmissive optics.’ In the remote sensing
world, Headwall’s technology – particularly its spectral imagers – have received a fair amount of attention because the size and weight of the instrument has
been shrunk down without sacrificing the spectral imaging performance. Tis development, coupled with a growth in this deployment of UAVs has led to a partnership agreement between Headwall and Leica Geosystems, a company based in Switzerland. Following the agreement, Leica Geosystems will resell and integrate Headwall’s line of hyperspectral imaging sensors into its airborne product portfolio. Because Headwall manufactures the diffraction objects in its systems, these sensors can be tuned to different spectral regions and applications depending on what Leica requires. Tis partnership will demonstrate the true
potential of spectral imaging and drive business in the remote sensing market through Headwall’s new European subsidiary. O
small step for Matrox Design Assistant Software
One
giant leap for vision.
One
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