SPORIAN MICROSYSTEMS, INC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.13

Description

Current Issue/Need: Hyperspectral Imagery allows for the spatial classification, identification, and detection of vegetation phenomena that relate to the agricultural industry, including: plant species identification, insect and disease detection/monitoring, stress detection, soil quality, and vegetative health that is key to effective precision agriculture. Existing hardware used in hyperspectral imagery is highly restricted to narrow spectral bands (providing minimal information), or are very large/costly and only available to high end user applications (satellite imaging, etc.) There is a need within the agricultural industry for wide spectral bandwidth (350-2500 nm) measurement system that is also low cost and compact enough to be more available for a wide range of use cases by agronomics stakeholders. Ideally, such hardware would be compact, and rugged enough to the used on a range of platforms (low cost UAV, farm equipment, and fixed installation).Importance to larger community: The proposed hyperspectral sensor supports multiple USDA strategic goals and benefits agriculture: 1) By maximizing crop yield while minimizing expenses, the technology will assist rural communities in thriving economically; 2) By non-invasive identification of pathogens, pests, water stress, runoff issues, and overall plant health, the sensor helps conserve national forests and private working lands while enhancing our water resources; 3) By providing an enabling technology for affordable, precision agriculture, the sensor will promote agriculture production exports and increase food security; and 4) By increasing agricultural productivity and abundance, the technology will help insure that all of America's children have access to safe, nutritious and balanced meals.Proposed Effort: Sporian proposes to realize a compact, low-cost, hyperspectral imager by utilizing a novel optical system design heavily emphasizing low-cost components to achieve the cost, size, and performance goals. The novel optical design originates from (and heavily leverages) Sporian's extensive prior development efforts on spectroscopic measurement systems for airborne and remote monitoring applications where size and cost minimization are critical. The Phase I effort will include: 1) working with technical and transition partners/customers to define key requirements and foster commercial transition; 2) evaluating designs for translating Sporian's current technology for imaging and agricultural application use 3) proof-of-principle construction and testing of a bench-top scale version of the hardware.