AVIRIS
AVIRIS is an acronym and means " A irborne V isible I nfra R ed I maging S pectrometer". The hyperspectral remote sensing sensor measures radiation in the visible and infrared range between 400 nm and 2500 nm. This 2100 nm wide range is divided into 224 individual (but connected) channels , which represents a unique spectral resolution in remote sensing . The airborne system was first used in 1987, so far on two different platforms:
- NASA ER-2 (modified U-2 )
- Twin Otter ( De Havilland Canada DHC-6 ).
AVIRIS is an opto-mechanical scanner that records 614 pixels per image line . The pixel (resolution) and the stripe width naturally depend on the flight altitude and thus on the platform. With the ER-2 (altitude = 20 km) a resolution of 20 × 20 m with a strip width of 11 km is achieved. Worn by the Twin Otter (flight altitude = 4 km), values of 4 × 4 m or 2 km can be achieved.
The areas of application so far have been the USA , Canada and Europe . An AVIRIS-like instrument for exploring mineralogy on the moon was launched in 2008 as a contribution by NASA to the Indian probe Chandrayaan-1 : the "Moon Mineralogy Mapper".