Active hyperspectral LIDAR methods for object classification

We have studied the fusion of active hyperspectral and range (LIDAR) data to investigate the concept of an active hyperspectral LIDAR and its potential applications in the remote sensing of vegetation. We have built two prototype instruments using the newly developed supercontinuum laser technique providing a continuous spectrum, which has then been used both for combined hyperspectral and LIDAR or time-of-flight measurement. The preliminary results point out the potential of active hyperspectral methods in laser-based remote sensing applications: the combined topographic and spectral information, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), can be used efficiently in automatic target identification and classification.