A hyperspectral imaging system is in development. The system uses spatially modulated Hadamard patterns to encode image information with implicit stray and ambient light correction and a reference beam to correct for source light changes over the spectral image capture period. In this study we test the efficacy of the corrections and the multiplex advantage for our system. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) was used to demonstrate the advantage of spatial multiplexing in the system and observe the effect of the reference beam correction. The statistical implications of the data acquisition technique, illumination source drift and correction of such drift, were derived. The reference beam correction was applied per spectrum before Hadamard decoding and alternately after decoding to all spectra in the image. The reference beam method made no fundamental change to SNR, therefore we conclude that light source drift is minimal and other possibly rectifiable error sources are dominant. The multiplex advantage was demonstrated ranging from a minimum SNR boost of 1.5 (600-975 nm) to a maximum of 11 (below 500 nm). Intermediate SNR boost was observed in 975-1700 nm. The large variation in SNR boost is also due to some other error source.

Date Published: 29 February 2008
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 6816, Sensors, Cameras, and Systems for Industrial/Scientific Applications IX, 68160J (29 February 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.766063

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6816:
Sensors, Cameras, and Systems for Industrial/Scientific Applications IX
Morley M. Blouke; Erik Bodegom, Editor(s)