Proceedings Article | 18 October 2010
KEYWORDS: Ultraviolet radiation, Sensors, Cameras, Pollution, Visible radiation, Remote sensing, Reflectivity, Detector arrays, Surveillance, Ocean optics
In recent years, the ocean oil spill pollution has already become one of terrible disasters on earth. Every year, thousands
of tons of crude oil spill enter global oceans. It heavily pollutes seas as the results of ecological disasters, such as oil
tanks, tank washings from oil tankers, discharges of machinery wastes. It's very important to monitor the ocean oil spill
pollution. In this context, a novel means of the UV push-broom imaging for airborne remote sensing was described and
validated. Firstly, a new-style UV linear array detector was designed, based on the GaN material sensitive to UV
radiation from 300nm-370nm, 512-pixel, in possession of the domestic intellectual property in China, and this UV
detector was the first device using the technology to manufacture GaN-base-512-pixel linear array detector successfully.
It had virtues such as the UV radiation band for detection can be controlled by different ingredients of the GaN-base
material, so it wasn't necessary to achieve the aim using special UV optic film filters, and this new-type linear array
detector was flexible and high efficient to image actual objects for UV remote sensing. Secondly, an UV prototype
camera (includes two visible channels) was fulfilled, using the GaN-base-512-pixel UV and visible linear array detectors
to implement push-broom imaging, IFOV (500μrad), in nadir and limb view angle (15°), SNR prior to approximately
3000 under the condition of a standard solar constant. Thirdly, airborne validation of a new-style ultraviolet push-broom
camera for ocean oil spill pollution surveillance had been achieved for the first time in Yellow Sea area of China in Sept,
2009. Not only the quality of UV push-broom images was good, but also all parameters of the camera were well fulfilled.
The new-type UV imaging technology using GaN-based linear array detector for push-broom was successfully validated.
The result shows that using ultraviolet push-broom imaging remote sensing method has the great potential to monitor the
real oil spill pollution on the sea. Meanwhile, it also shows that UV band must have a high detecting sensitivity to be
useful and benefited for detecting the marine oil spill than other visible bands. In future, this technology can be applied
for the ocean oil spill pollution surveillance, preparing for UV imaging remote sensing under the airborne or the space
platform, and it can be carried out from the medium to high spatial resolution. In conclusion, it is significant to the UV
remote sensing development.
