Active hyperspectral imaging with a supercontinuum laser source in the dark

An active hyperspectral imaging (HSI) system was built with a supercontinuum (SC) laser illuminator and a visible/near-infrared hyperspectral camera, which was used for object spectrum detection in the dark. It was demonstrated that the Gaussian-like distribution of the SC illuminator can still be used for accurate reflectance spectrum measurement once the illuminator was characterized in advance. The validity of active HSI results was demonstrated by comparison with passive results. Then, the active HSI system was used to acquire reflectance spectra of different objects in just one push-broom measurement successfully. With algorithms of principal component analysis clustering and unsupervised K-means spectral classification, this active HSI system with high spectral and spatial resolutions was demonstrated to be efficient and applicable for specific spectrum detections. (paper)