The popularity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, have grown significantly over the past few years. As the technology of drones improves, large developments in hyperspectral imaging are being made from a variety of different companies.

Drones have been used in military applications for quite some time, but they’re now becoming more popular in the commercial sector. The advantages of using drones are extremely high in all types of businesses and industries.

How Does Hyperspectral Imaging Actually Work?

Hyperspectral imaging utilizes imaging of narrow spectral bands across a continuous spectral range to produce spectra of every pixel in the entire scene. By creating a continuous spectrum for each image cell, these measurements are able to form 3-D hyperspectral data for both analysis and processing.

Applications for Hyperspectral Imaging

Hyperspectral imaging is often used in environmental monitoring, mineral exploration, and resource management. Examples include:

• Monitoring the health of crops
• Geological mapping of various minerals
• In the military to provide imaging and identification capabilities for chemical warfare agents and to assist with standoff detection
• The identification of oil sources
• For use in a variety of other applications such as crop research, food analysis, forensics, and life sciences.

Embedded Processing Used to Improve Drone Technology

Another area that is helping with the rapid expansion of UAVs is embedded processing. By streamlining the process for handling complicated image analysis and compression, less hardware has to be used, which saves both space and weight on the drone itself.

Also, most end users likely don’t need the full spectral information from a scene. The results need to be understandable by all users who may not have the necessary experience to handle them in their raw form. Using onboard processors allow drones to handle real-time analysis and calculations to provide data that is timely and actionable.

Orion Technologies Offers Full Single Board Computer Design and Development

At Orion Technologies, we’ve worked with a handful of UAV manufacturers to develop single board computers that can hold up to the rigors that are common when using drones.  For more information on our selection of single board computers and processors, feel free to contact our sales team today at 407-476-2120, or contact our team online.