A Hyperspectral imager aboard a cubesat would be able to provide images which could be used to identify ships and determine the ship's length and breadth and heading. Depending on the size of the ship, the speed the ship is traveling can be determined as well; however the speed and size determination is limited by the spatial resolution of 100 meters. The spectral signature of the boat is dramatically different from the spectral signature of the open Ocean especially within the range of 400 to 1000 nanometers, and this threshold is the basis for extracting ship data. Hyperspectral Imagers are ideal for minimization with few optical errors introduced, and designs range in durability making them useful on board small satellites especially in the visible and near infrared region. Placing an imager on a satellite allows for consistent observation over a region to identify patterns in ship movement over time. / Master of Science / A camera capable of taking pictures at a higher resolution than humans can see and slightly beyond the visible range could be put on a small satellite and the images from it could be used to find ships and determine the size and direction of the ship. If the camera was closer than on a satellite, the images could be used to also determine how fast the ship is traveling. In the images the ship stands out from the water and software program can use this difference to pick out a ship and run calculations on it. The camera described in this paper is one that can easily be made smaller and are more durable than other kinds of camera. A camera that could go into a small satellite could take frequent images of the same area so that ships in the area could be tracked and shipping traffic observed for gathering research on things like illegal fishing or drug transporting.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/78880 |
| Date | 12 September 2017 |
| Creators | Koehn, Tabitha |
| Contributors | Electrical and Computer Engineering, Black, Jonathan T., Clauer, C. Robert, Bailey, Scott M. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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