Radiometric spectral fusion of VNIR and SWIR hyperspectral cameras

Abstract

When two hyperspectral cameras are sensitive to complementary portions of the electromagnetic spectrum it is fundamental that the calibration processes conducted independently lead to comparable radiance values, especially if the cameras show a shared spectral interval. However, in practice, a perfect matching is hard to obtain, and radiance values that are expected to be similar might differ significantly. In the present study we propose to introduce an ulterior linear correcting factor in the radiometric calibration pipeline of two hyperspectral cameras, operating in the visible near infrared (VNIR) and short wave infrared (SWIR) intervals. The linearity properties of both cameras are preliminarily assessed, conducting acquisitions on five standardized targets, and highlighting noise at the sensors level and different illumination fields as the main causes of radiance mismatch. The correction step that we propose allows the retrieval of accurate and smoothly connected VNIR-SWIR reflectance factor curves.