Design, Development and Calibration of a Miniature High Radiometric

A recent trend in EO applications has been to use large numbers of "nano" spacecraft (e.g. CubeSats) to provide global imaging. This has coincided with a rapid rise in the availability of small, low cost, commercial UAVs, also primarily used for imaging. Both platforms suffer similar limitations in terms of payload carrying capacity and so, to date, the instruments carried have tended to be simple colour video cameras. This limits their scientific and commercial utility. The development of well calibrated, high quality multi/hyperspetral instrumentation for such platforms would significantly enhance their capabilities. The objectives of this PhD are to examine this problem holistically, considering the instrument, platform, data calibration/validation and concept of operations to enable such craft to be capable of producing data of high scientific quality, and to demonstrate the key technologies and techniques involved.