UK scientists develop mine-spotting camera

Here is an interesting approach to mine detection, one that could have valuable applications in the medical field as well. Human beings, human beings will recall, can perceive only a limited span of the light spectrum — those of the red, green, and blue variety. (Digital cameras work the same way.) The handheld Image Replication Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS) system, developed by Andrew Harvey and colleagues at Heriot-Watt University in the United Kingdom, however, has a color palette comprised of thirty-two bands of the light spectrum. By dividing an image into thirty-two separate snapshots, each containing only the light from one of the bands, the system can pick out features that blend into one for a human observer. “It should be useful in, for example, a situation where they need to know if there are any artificial objects like mines or vehicles hidden in foliage,” Harvey explained.

“Until now this kind of imaging was achieved by looking at the different spectral bands sequentially in time,” said Harvey. The IRIS, however, projects all 32 onto a detector side by side, allowing the device to analyse them all simultaneously. The images are then translated into false color in order to allow operators to make use of its abilities. British defense firms Qinetiq and Selex are both currently developing operatioanl models of the IRIS, with the hope of bringing the size down to that of a video camera. The device is also being tested as a medical tool at Cheltenham General Hospital to diagnose eye disease by looking at blood flow within the retina. IRIS, doctors there believe, is sensitive enough to tell the different between oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.

-read more in Tom Simonite’s New Scientist report