Physical relations concerning a hyperspectral linescanner, modeling a multirotor sensor system

Unmanned aerial vehicles, like a quadrotor, have recently gained interest as alternative observation platform. Equipped with a lightweight imaging spectrograph, these configurations can sense an area in the order of several hectares. This study models such an observation system. It highlights the geometric and radiometric relations of importance for an imaging spectrograph, based on diffracting optics for close-range configurations. These relations are used to model such a system, configured from off-the-shelf components. This most favourable configuration results in a product with a spatial resolution just below 5cm, a swath of 36 meter and flight speed of 4 m/s. Furthermore, an assessment focussing on the “cosine fourth law” and the sensitivity of ground truth in respect to projection. These phenomena are of importance for close-range remote sensing solutions. Its concluded with remarks on georeferencing and a possible solution for reduction of the mentioned errors is given through inclusion of second optical sensor.status: publishe