Headwall Centre for Hyperspectral Remote Sensing in Europe

Capturing vegetation health and location to better detect encroachment on a railway.

One example of an application-specific mission is capturing vegetation health and location to better detect encroachment on critical infrastructure, such as railways. With the cooperation of Deutsche Bahn rail, geo-konzept flew a Headwall UAV, taking both hyperspectral images and LiDAR data. The resulting 3D images show can show both an indicator of plant health and the position of potentially at-risk trees adjacent to the railway.

Headwall BVBA, Belgium and geo-konzept of Germany have announced the formation of a Centre for Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Europe (CHRSE). This will be located at geo-konzept’s headquarters in Adelschlag, Germany. The new centre will support the implementation and utilisation of hyperspectral imaging technology combined with other sensor technology, such as LiDAR and high-precision GPS, focusing on agriculture, mining, environmental monitoring and infrastructure inspection applications. The facility features large areas for unmanned drone flights and certified unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pilots available to test and demonstrate hyperspectral imaging technology in application-specific environments and to train the next generation of UAV operators. The centre also offers indoor meeting areas to develop applications together with researchers and users and to train data analysts utilizing hyperspectral imaging technology to come to better, fact-based decisions to manage their applications.