Spectral band selection for visible-near infrared remote sensing: spectral-spatial resolution tradeoffs

Recent technological developments permit improved instrumentation for surveillance and resource monitoring, but tradeoffs of spectral resolution and number of spectral bands versus spatial resolution and measurement precision must be considered. A band selection procedure is applied to high spectral resolution (0.01 /spl mu//m) aircraft sensor imagery representing the visible and near-infrared wavelengths (0.4-2.5 /spl mu/m). Approximately 30-40 spectral bands characterize virtually all the information (variability) in the data, with the precise number depending on issues of data interpretation. This suggests that lower spectral resolution and higher spatial resolution are preferable to the reverse. Further study is needed to evaluate the significance of spectral bands having very low amplitude variability.