Construction of high spectral resolution reflectance database

Abstract

A planned satellite-mounted hyperspectral sensor will be able to observe 185 bands (wavelength resolution : approximately 10nm) of visible-shortwave near infrared, and is expected to be used in environmental and industrial applications. Hyperspectral data with high wavelength resolution has the potential to allow the type and contents of minerals to be identified from the absorption features of land surface spectral reflectance, and estimations of mineral composition may be possible by analyzing the change of absorption position. To analyze mineral compositions, a spectrum database from USGS, which was updated periodically, has been used. However, on the longer wavelength side of the spectrum, the database has lower wavelength resolution than that of the sensor to be mounted on the satellite. Because of this inconvenience, the long wavelength resolution of the hyperspectral data can be considered as being under-utilized. For this reason, we are now developing a mineral spectral reflectance database that has higher spectral resolution than the hyperspectral data over the 1,300nm wavelength region. To obtain the necessary spectral data, we have collected and researched around 150 mineral specimens.