AVIRIS

AVIRIS, which stands for Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, is a hyperspectral imaging instrument developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA to measure surface reflectance in the visible to near-infrared and shortwave-infrared. It collects data in 224 contiguous spectral bands from about 0.38 to 2.5 micrometers, enabling detailed spectral identification of minerals, vegetation, and other materials.

The instrument is a pushbroom scanner mounted on an aircraft such as the NASA ER-2; as the aircraft flies, the scanner sweeps across the ground, building a data cube with two spatial dimensions and one spectral dimension. Each pixel contains reflectance values across all bands, and the data are subjected to radiometric calibration and atmospheric correction to derive surface properties.

Development and use: AVIRIS was developed by JPL in the late 1980s and has been employed in numerous field campaigns around the world. It has contributed to mineral mapping, soil and vegetation studies, and environmental monitoring by providing detailed spectral information that differentiates materials with similar appearances.

Variants and legacy: A successor, AVIRIS-NG (Next Generation), introduced improvements in signal-to-noise and calibration, expanding capabilities for contemporary Earth science applications and demanding environments.

Data access: AVIRIS data are archived and publicly accessible via NASA data centers and related portals, supporting research in geology, ecology, agriculture, and environmental science.