Comparison of Target Detection Performance for Radiance and Reflectance Domain in VNIR Hyperspectral Images

In this paper, the hyperspectral detection of targets in visible-near infrared (VNIR) images is studied. The change of radiance domain signatures in images taken in different locations, time and altitudes are analyzed. A new radiance domain detection scheme for VNIR images under 1000 m altitude is proposed. The analysis shows that the radiance domain signatures of each target, that are collected from an image taken at 10 m altitude, can be effectively used for pure pixel target detection in other VNIR images taken at altitudes between 10 - 1000 m . The proposed approach is tested using several target types and on images taken at different altitudes and environmental conditions. Our results show that target detection in radiance domain provides a cheaper, easier and effective alternative to reflectance domain, in VNIR images.