COSMEC BANDS

Spectral Feature Analysis
AAI's BANDS software technology has been integrated with the US government's Common Spectral MASINT Exploitation Capability (COSMEC) software developed by the National Air & Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) located at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton Ohio. COSMEC is a GOTS image processing package developed under the MASINT Spectral Processing & Exploitation Initiative (MSPEI). COSMEC software is an image processing framework designed to handle both multispectral and hyperspectral imagery and to be expandable through the use of software plugins. COSMEC BANDS is integrated into the COSMEC NIDA material identification algorithm used to process hyperspectral image data.

BANDS is a Hyperspectral data processing module developed by Applied Analysis Inc. to automatically detect and characterize diagnostic spectral features. It detects and characterizes constituent absorption and emission bands to uncover subtle material spectral features. The software uses a high order derivative analysis algorithm to extract band positions, widths, and strengths while suppressing noise.

BANDS assumes that a spectrum contains a superposition of spectral features along with background continuum and sensor noise. It reports band position, width (FWHM), and strength (intensity).

For a more detailed description of BANDS see R. L. Huguenin and J. L. Jones, “Intelligent information extraction from reflectance spectra: Absorption band positions,” J. Geophys. Res. 91, pp. 9585-9598, 1986.

COSMEC BANDS is the final step in the COSMEC NIDA material identification process. NIDA signatures can include a BANDS component which specifies position ranges for spectral features detected by BANDS. When a pixel exhibits a feature within each position range, it is judged to contain the material of interest. Pixels which lack a spectral feature within a position range are rejected. This process helps reduce false alarms by rejecting all candidate pixels which do not possess the required set of spectral features.