Development of Accessible Hyperspectral Imaging Architectures Towards Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Hyperspectral imaging combines the attributes of imaging (detecting physical features) and spectroscopy (detecting chemical features) and is a technology with great potential in many applications. However, to facilitate widespread adoption of hyperspectral imaging, such systems require enhanced accessibility (i.e., being inexpensive and upcomplicated) and can be developed as novel hyperspectral imaging instrumentation architectures. This thesis presents, designs, develops, and evaluates an accessible hyperspectral imaging instrumentation architecture, with snapshot operation, based on the integration of readily-available components and frequency multiplexing with Fourier analyses. This is achieved through the identification of incident spatial image channels with frequency encoding from unique dynamic binary codes. Comparison to data from a commercial spectrometer reveals the performance of the hyperspectral imaging instrumentation architecture. Overall, the hyperspectral imaging instrumentation architecture compares favourably to commercially available products and can be adapted for two-dimensional operation. The presented hyperspectral imaging instrumentation architecture can provide benefit for regions of the world that have limited financial resources and have a need for accessible hyperspectral imaging technologies.