“Space Computer Corporation’s ARCHER software platform is the world’s first fully operational large-scale deployment of hyperspectral imaging technology.”

“ARCHER is the first hyperspectral imaging system to incorporate real-time geo-registration of HSI data.”

SCC developed ARCHER for the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) – The US Air Force Auxiliary. The system is deployed in the GA-8 Airvan, an 8-passenger fixed-gear high-wing monoplane manufactured by Gippsland Aeronautics of Australia .

ARCHER is a very intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) wrapped around a suite of SCC’s HSI data analysis and visualization tools, each customized for the particular demands of CAP missions. Although primarily intended for enhanced search and rescue capabilities, CAP has found many additional uses for ARCHER, including missions for homeland security, disaster assessment, and drug interdiction.

ARCHER includes the following HSI data visualization and analysis tools:

• GeoPaint^® – rapid visualization GUI that displays geo-registered HSI data on a UTM grid and overlays detected targets at their actual ground coordinates, all in real time.
• GeoView ^TM – graphical user interface for rapid evaluation of targets.
• GeoChange ^TM – algorithm that co-registers overlapping HSI datasets and performs pixel-level spectral difference evaluation to detect changes between the datasets.
• Chip on Demand ^TM – algorithm that creates target for user-selected pixel.
• Anomaly Target Detection – algorithm that detects anomalous spectra in a scene.
• Signature Match Target Detection – algorithm that detects spectra in a scene that match a given spectrum.

ARCHER provides real-time target detection, imagery review and mission analysis capabilities—while the search team is in the air, directly above the search area, as the data are being acquired. Targets are annotated with a colored border that signifies the detection algorithm that detected the target. Red target borders signify signature match detections, yellow borders signify anomaly detections, and purple borders signify Chip-on-Demand^TM, that is, GeoPaint has created a target based on an HSI pixel selected by the user.

The user has complete control over the target detection parameters at all times during data acqusition and playback. Any or all the detection paramters can be adjusted as needed during real-time processing. All parameter adjustments are implemented immediately and affect all future detections; however, targets that have already been detected are not affected by subsequent detection parameter adjustments. For example, the colors that drive the GeoPaint display can be changed at will from a natural-looking palette to false color, or to a custom selection of hyperspectral bands to drive each of the color-rendering algorithms.

Simultaneously with the real-time imagery processing, ARCHER plots the ground area swept by the sensors on a handheld tablet PC. The tablet PC is designated ARCHER Total Recon Awareness Control, or ARCHER TRAC. ARCHER TRAC is a mission navigation and tracking tool that helps the pilot and crew ensure that imagery data has been collected from the entire mission search area. Key waypoints and search grids are easily programmed into ARCHER TRAC. The ground area that has been swept by the ARCHER sensors is superimposed on a standard aviation sectional map, as shown below.

The ARCHER system includes a portable ground-based processor (the "ground station," shown below) that allows post-flight data analysis. Post-flight analysis runs at speeds up to 3x real time with no degradation in algorithm performance. The ground station is also used extensively for training, since it has all the processing capabilities of the airborne system and more.