Assisting Spectral Mapping Using Cameras

Abstract

Spectral mapping, typically performed at the orbital scale, is hard at the rover scale as it necessitates larger coverage and field operable spectrometers. In this work, we propose using RGB cameras to assist spectral mapping. RGB cameras placed on a wide range of robotic platforms, including aerial vehicles, which can explore large regions compared to ground rovers. Our method uses a spectral model which learns the spatial relationship of spectra in a compressed feature space. We show that RGB data can contribute to this feature space and thereby enhance spectral reconstruction accuracy.