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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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The Hyperspectral Microwave Photonic Instrument (HyMPI) and its NEDT Performance

This work presents an overview of a hyperspectral microwave-photonic spectrometer and demonstrates the system end-to-end noise equivalent delta temperature (NEDT) performance. The system aims at augmenting the remote sensing capability from space, with a focus on the Earth’s planetary boundary layer (PBL) thermal microwave (MW) spectral region (0-200 GHz). Combining a Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) channelizer and an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) spectrometer, the PIC & ASIC (PICASIC) module is capable of processing 40 GHz spectra at hyperspectral (4 MHz) resolution. The photonic technology is agnostic to the spectral region and multiple photonic modules can cover the entire 200 GHz spectrum. Measured results of the end-to-end system NEDT agree with predicted values confirming that the NEDT is primarily dominated by the noise figure of the MW front-end, with the optical link adding no significant noise. The data also demonstrate that a single module enables simultaneous super- and hyper-spectral resolution channel analysis across a 40 GHz range.

spectrometer

Hyperspectral Detail Meets Radiometric Accuracy: A Foundational Reflected Solar Capability for the Coming Decade

Hyperspectral Earth-reflected solar measurements contain rich, detailed information about clouds, aerosols, and the atmosphere. This information compounds when paired with high, SI-traceable radiometric accuracy. Unlike spectral resolution, which can be resampled to coarser spectral resolutions, radiometric accuracy cannot be recovered once a measurement is made, making the choice to invest in this capability now a decision with lasting consequences for the climate record. CLARREO Pathfinder is demonstrating that this combination of hyperspectral sampling and benchmark-quality accuracy is achievable today, but no follow-on mission is currently planned within NASA's Earth Science Division portfolio, and the recent cancellation of the European Space Agency TRUTHS mission has heightened the urgency of sustaining this capability. We recommend prioritizing investment in a follow-on to CLARREO Pathfinder, along with dedicated support for the science community to fully exploit these measurements. This capability would reduce long-standing uncertainties in cloud feedback, aerosol forcing, and global energy imbalance, while providing a degradation-resistant, gap-resilient calibration foundation for the broader Earth observing system. Building on flight-proven technology and an engaged science community, this is a near-term, fiscally realistic opportunity to secure a foundational Earth observation capability for the coming decade.

satellite

Operational Correction for the Temperature Dependence of A Class of Hyperspectral Radiometers

The correction for temperature response of optical radiometers implies access to their working temperature (i.e., either the internal or ambient one with the radiometers in thermal equilibrium). With specific reference to a class of widely used hyperspectral radiometers lacking a thermistor to measure the internal temperature, this work investigated the potential for operational corrections relying on the ambient temperature derived from the radiometer dark digital counts. With the objective to keep within approximately 1% the uncertainty for radiometric corrections in the 400–800-nm spectral range, findings showed the applicability of the method for ambient temperatures higher than approximately 30°C. The alternative use of an ambient temperature proxy, determined from the air temperature incremented by a few degrees Celsius, was shown a valid solution to constrain the uncertainty of radiometric corrections to within 1% over the entire 0°–40°C interval.

Giuseppe Zibordi

A Radiometric Consistent Spectral Fingerprinting Algorithm for Continuity Products of Hyperspectral Sounders

A radiometric consistent climate fingerprinting methodology has been developed to derive long-term temperature, water vapor, cloud, trace gases, and surface skin temperature anomaly time series from the hyper-spectral sounder measurements of multiple platforms. The spectral fingerprinting methodology requires the use of radiative kernels that are radiometrically consistent with observations. Radiative kernels are built using space-time averaged Jacobians that are physically retrieved from observations under all sky conditions. The physical retrieval algorithm uses the Principal Component based Radiative Transfer Model (PCRTM) for the forward simulation. The incorporation of multiple scattering simulation in PCRTM allows the direct radiative relationship between single field-of-view (FOV) radiance observations and corresponding thermal dynamic variables including cloud properties to be established. Therefore, radiance ?closure? can be achieved under all-sky conditions by the fingerprinting scheme. This methodology has been used to derive climate anomalies from the space-time averaged spectra of AIRS/AMSU and CrIS/ATMS. The use of a consistent fingerprinting scheme provides an effective mean of generating continuity product by merging observations from different platforms and therefore facilitating the long-term climate trend study.

Wan Wu

ClassNMSW- a real-time classification approach for non-recycled municipal solid waste using hyperspectral imaging

Real-time classification of non-recycled municipal solid waste (NMSW) is essential for efficient valorization. This study introduces ClassNMSW, a comprehensive framework for classifying 22 NMSW subclasses under industrial constraints by using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). A primary innovation of this work is the development of a variance-controlled spectral extraction algorithm. Unlike traditional methods that rely on simple averaging, this approach systematically investigates the extent of pixel extraction to minimize the loss of critical chemical information while maximizing data reduction thus ensuring high spectral fidelity with low computational cost. The approach developed in this work integrates automated, computer-vision-based background removal, eliminating the need for the manual thresholding common in current literature. To resolve ambiguities among chemically similar subclasses, a tiered classification and multi-camera fusion strategy (NIR17 and NIR22) is implemented. Results demonstrate that ClassNMSW achieves an object-wise weighted accuracy of 98.70% for single-sensor configurations and 100% under sensor fusion. A novel rolling-window strategy satisfies desired end-to-end latency of <2 s, satisfying the strict deterministic requirements of high-speed industrial sorting environments. The ClassNMSW framework provides a scalable foundation for advancing circularity and resource recovery in large-scale waste valorization operations.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

Utilization of Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Environmental Purposes at the Savannah River Site – 26578

Born in the 1950s, the Savannah River Plant was constructed as a plutonium and tritium production plant. As the Cold War era came and went, a change of direction was signaled when the name of the facility changed from Savannah River Plant to Savannah River Site (1989) – the main mission at Savannah River shifted from “production” to “cleanup.” The Department of Energy is responsible for managing the 310 square miles of land that is the Savannah River Site and the cleanup/remediation activities that occur. The Savannah River National Laboratory utilizes unmanned aircraft systems to assist with some of those environmental monitoring and remediation activities. One function of unmanned aircraft systems at the Savannah River National Laboratory is conducting aerial photography and videography. Various infrastructure evaluations have been performed with unmanned aircraft – facility rooftop inspections, water tower lock verifications, earthen dam surveys, etc. An unmanned aircraft system has been used for progress footage of remediation projects – Dunbarton Bay remediation, Saltstone Disposal Unit construction, etc. Thermal cameras on an unmanned aircraft system are used to help identify cracks/leaks in structures from vantage points not readily accessible by personnel. Virtual tours of different waste units are conducted with unmanned aircraft systems for Site groups and federal/state regulators to save costs and travel time. Additionally, advanced remote sensing technologies are used on unmanned aircraft systems at the Savannah River Site. Light Detection and Ranging uses laser pulses to measure distances to the Earth's surface or other targets to create highly detailed topographic maps that accurately portray terrain (e.g., elevation changes, slopes, and contours). Data collection with a Light Detection and Ranging unit mounted on an unmanned aircraft system is quick and efficient – large-area surveys are conducted in shorter time frames. Because Light Detection and Ranging can penetrate through foliage and vegetation to ground level, it is being used in conjunction with a watershed model to study the General Separations Area of the Site to determine stormwater flow volume and direction, monitor stream stability, and forecast river flow behavior. A hyperspectral camera captures a wide spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths across numerous narrow bands, beyond what the human eye can see. It provides detailed spectral information about the objects or surfaces in an image, which can be used to identify and analyze materials based on their spectral signatures. A hyperspectral camera mounted on an unmanned aircraft system has been used at the Savannah River Site for non-destructive evaluation of concrete and concrete structures. Unmanned aircraft systems at the Savannah River Site are also used for the application of herbicide on identified rooftops. P-Reactor and R-Reactor are entombed nuclear reactors at the Savannah River Site. Unwanted vegetation is often present on these rooftops – over time roots can penetrate seams, cracks, and joints of the general roof and concrete caps, leading to water ingress and deterioration of the structural components. For time and cost efficiencies as well as in the interest of personnel safety, an unmanned aircraft is used to dispense herbicide on rooftop areas where vegetation is noticed to help alleviate the issues/hazards.

Lorier, Troy [Savannah River National Laboratory (

High-throughput micro-scale bandgap mapping for perovskite-inspired materials with complex composition space

Abstract To realize the full promise of high-throughput experimental workflows, the rate of sample synthesis must be matched by that of characterization. Of growing interest are contactless optical techniques that can rapidly measure material homogeneity and properties. Here, we present a hyperspectral imaging method to measure local optical bandgap distributions within samples, utilizing spatially-resolved reflectance spectra coupled with automated data analysis. We collect approximately one million optical bandgap data across the compositional space of Cs 3 (Bi x Sb 1-x ) 2 (Br y I 1-y ) 9 perovskite-inspired materials. Our results show non-monotonic bandgap variations (i.e., bandgap bowing) along six composition gradient sequences, in addition to identifying samples with multiple bandgaps in statistics. High-throughput transient absorption spectroscopy reveals that within these compositions, the depletion of the ground state carriers to excited states occurred at discrete energy levels with independent carrier dynamics, consistent with the bandgap observation and indicative of phase separation. This work demonstrates the potential for rapid optical measurements to assess material quality and homogeneity in a high-throughput experimental setting, supporting screening and recipe optimization of optoelectronic material candidates with desired carrier dynamics and optical properties.

Science & Technology - Other Topics

Fast Active-Set Thresholding Method for Nonnegative Least Squares

Nonnegative Least Squares (NNLS) is a fundamental constrained optimization problem encountered in many applications such as image deblurring, signal processing, nonnegative matrix factorization, magnetic microscopy, and hyperspectral imaging. Active-set based methods are a common class of algorithms for solving NNLS which identify the optimal variable set of the NNLS solution. They do so by iteratively solving a series of unconstrained least squares problems, identifying which variables violate the nonnegativity constraints, and then swapping variables in/out of consideration until the optimal set of variables is found. Several variations improving upon this method exist in the literature. In this work, we propose an active-set swap heuristic which further improves upon existing active-set based methods for NNLS. Our optimizations are based upon adding multiple variables to the passive set within a threshold of the smallest gradient value and removing variables within a similar threshold of the closest boundary constraint. We leverage these optimizations to yield a Fast Active-Set Thresholding NNLS (FAST-NNLS) algorithm which significantly outperforms the existing state-of-the-art NNLS algorithms for a wide range of problems. Rigorous convergence guarantees are proven for the proposed method. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method on multiple synthetic datasets and two realworld text analysis applications. In doing so, we present the most comprehensive NNLS solver comparison in the literature to date.

Cobb, Benjamin [Georgia Institute of Technology]

Proactive Wildfire Management: A Remote Sensing and Multimodal CNN-MLP Architecture for Ignition Risk Forecasting

As the frequency and intensity of wildfires increase, with fire seasons now starting earlier and ending later than they have over the past decades, current monitoring systems, such as lookout towers and satellites, are hindered by cloud cover, low-resolution imagery, and static data gaps that fail to track vegetation moisture levels fast enough to catch rapid pre-ignition changes. This report proposes a Machine Learning-enabled Wildfire Ignition Prediction framework that combines satellite monitoring with dynamic and high-resolution remote sensing from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms. The method would use multispectral and thermal data from the Landsat program to create a baseline for vegetation health, calculating a two-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2) and the moisture content of the vegetation. These inputs will later be fused with microscale UAV weather data, including thermal hotspots found through thick canopies, hyperspectral chemical signatures of pre-visual combustion, and local weather streams. The multispectral satellite, multispectral Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), and thermal data would then be processed through a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), alongside a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) for the micro-weather telemetry. The outputs of these networks would be fused into a single feature representation and passed through a final prediction network to generate real-time ignition risk scores and hotspot alerts. Model performance would be assessed using standard classification metrics, including a Receiver Operating Characteristic - Area Under the Curve (ROC AUC) and F1 score. This system would allow first responders to identify high-risk zones and intervene before ignition occurs, improving emergency response time compared to current approaches.

machine learning

In-Flight Calibration of ESA Hera’s Hyperscout-H Imager

ESA’s Hera space mission is on its way to the mission target, the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos. HyperScout-H, one of the instruments onboard Hera, is a hyperspectral imager operating in the visible and near-infrared regions between 0.65 and 0.95 μm. HyperScout-H will enable a detailed assessment of the composition of both objects, Didymos and its satellite Dimorphos, the characterization of space weathering effects, and the possible presence of exogenous material on their surfaces. To monitor instrument functionality, calibration exposures are acquired regularly. This article describes the in-flight calibrations carried out for HyperScout-H during the commissioning and cruise phases. Bias and dark exposures, as well as stellar field observations, were acquired several times after launch. We update the calibration data and monitor instrument performance in the space environment. In addition, images of Earth and Moon were acquired from distances of 1.5 × 10 6 to 2.0 × 10 6 km, and Mars and its satellite were imaged during the flyby. In five images, the surface of Mars fills the entire field of view, enabling cross-validation of HyperScout-H results with those reported by other Mars missions. We characterize the detector under in-flight operational conditions. The calibration data indicate that the bias pattern is stable, the dark current remains negligible for short exposures, and the detector response is highly linear. We quantify the field-of-view alignment and geometric distortion, and evaluate the point spread function based on the stellar field observations. Stellar observations and Mars swing-by data provide updated radiometric calibration constants, suggesting that in-flight conditions have slightly modified the detector’s spectral response. In-flight calibrations are essential to ensure data quality and reliability.

Image Processing

Dynamic nanodomains dictate macroscopic properties in lead halide perovskites

Lead halide perovskites have emerged as promising materials for solar energy conversion and X-ray detection owing to their remarkable optoelectronic properties. However, the microscopic origins of their superior performance remain unclear. Here we show that low-symmetry dynamic nanodomains present in the high-symmetry average cubic phases, whose characteristics are dictated by the A-site cation, govern the macroscopic behaviour. We combine X-ray diffuse scattering, inelastic neutron spectroscopy, hyperspectral photoluminescence microscopy and machine-learning-assisted molecular dynamics simulations to directly correlate local nanoscale dynamics with macroscopic optoelectronic response. Our approach reveals that methylammonium-based perovskites form densely packed, anisotropic dynamic nanodomains with out-of-phase octahedral tilting, whereas formamidinium-based systems develop sparse, isotropic, spherical nanodomains with in-phase tilting, even when crystallography reveals cubic symmetry on average. We demonstrate that these sparsely distributed isotropic nanodomains present in formamidinium-based systems reduce electronic dynamic disorder, resulting in a beneficial optoelectronic response, thereby enhancing the performance of formamidinium-based lead halide perovskite devices. By elucidating the influence of the A-site cation on local dynamic nanodomains, and consequently, on the macroscopic properties, we propose leveraging this relationship to engineer the optoelectronic response of these materials, propelling further advancements in perovskite-based photovoltaics, optoelectronics and X-ray imaging.

Materials Science