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JULY 1, 2002, 11:30EDT
KALISPELL, Mont. -- Earth Search Sciences, Inc. a commercial provider of hyperspectral technology, has been awarded a contract by the Naval Research Laboratory to assess the coastline of Virginia using the company's remote sensing instrument in an airborne survey.
Terms for the Navy contract with Earth Search were not disclosed. The company said that the twice-daily -- high tide and low tide -- flights at 8,000 feet have already begun and that the project is part of a larger, ongoing relationship with the Navy in which the results of airborne hyperspectral remote sensing complement satellite data.
Hyperspectral sensing is an imaging technology so precise it can differentiate from an airborne vantage point a field of oats from a field of barley -- and determine if the field is infested with insects or damaged by nitrogen depletion -- or show clearly whether the metal object under a tree is a car or a tank. The technology can detect changes in soil composition, vegetal stress and chemical toxins.
"These flights are for the purpose of homeland security," commented Larry Vance, chairman of Earth Search. "The data and techniques developed will be applied to coastline evaluation on a global basis. Warfare has changed. The Navy no longer fights major sea battles, ship against ship. The Navy now is a mobile staging vehicle that transports and deploys men and equipment to every corner of the globe for the purpose of in-country action. Because of this change in strategy, the Navy needs very detailed information about the coastlines not only of our country but also of every country in order to prepare and plan for delivery of men and machines."
While existing satellite and remote sensing technology provides the ability to identify objects primarily by shape or spectral response, hyperspectral imaging, by measuring the degree of spectral reflectance of solar energy across the spectrum and creating a digital fingerprint, can map specific minerals, compounds or any other surface objects.
In addition to security applications, Earth Search hyperspectral applications are used for environmental and oil and mineral surveys. For example, the company has conducted an environmental survey for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund surveying the Virunga conservation area in Rwanda in an airborne hyperspectral-sensing probe to find and measure the distribution of bamboo and nettles necessary to sustain mountain gorillas its natural habitat. Earth Search has been surveying parts of Montana in a vegetation assessment and has frequent assignments throughout the West and Southwest for mineral and oil detection.
Military & Aerospace Electronics
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