Development of techniques of hyper spectral analysis for EO and planetary applications
Hyperspectral sensing is a method of extracting information about an object or scene in narrow spectral bands using imaging spectroscopy. Since the object or scene is imaged in narrow bands of wavelengths the neighboring pixel values are highly correlated. Further, the imaging conditions play a vital role in extracting end members for specific applications such as crop classification, mineral mapping, and urban scene analysis. A range of hyperspectral sensors are flown by ISRO namely Hyper spectral imaging camera of ISRO (HySI - ISRO) is flown on IMS-1, and Chandrayan-1 having a spectral range from 0.4 to 0.95 micro meter at 10nm spectral resolution, Chandrayan 2 mission Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer for studying mineral mapping on moon. The present challenges facing the hyperspectral imagery processing and analysis being (i) data fusion, (ii) spectral unmixing, (iii) Data reduction, (iv) fast computing, and (v) data mining. We welcome proposals providing solutions in any of the above areas of our interests
Correlation of landforms with mineral composition on planetary surfaces
It is widely recognised that understanding of Mars must begin by using the Earth as a reference. Therefore terrestrial analogues, places on Earth that approximate the geological and environmental conditions on Mars; hold the key for understanding the evolution of Martian geology. Off late, detection of water or aqueous environments in Mars is of primary interest for researchers across the world. Therefore, the study will primarily focus on detection of key minerals indicating hydrous past of Mars and establishing it suitable analogues on earth with respect to mineral composition and landform distribution. Further, certain minerals are associated with distinctive landforms, thus indicating the occurrence of that mineral. The study also aims at demarcating such landforms so that first pass mineral deposit identification can be done.
