Collaborative Research: Development of Compact, Fast Waterproof Hyper-Spectral Imager & Multi-Channel SpectroPolarimeter for Marine Studies of Coloration and Patterning

PI的要求资金开发一个创新的光场传感仪器包，将使动态表征的空间，光谱，时间和偏振方面的光在水生和其他潮湿的环境。这种仪器将是小型的、便携式的和防水的，以便它可以容易地部署（例如，由SCUBA潜水员）在确切的自然栖息地和动物相互作用和光线变化的时间范围内。一个新的国家的最先进的超光谱成像仪（HSI）与快速的图像曝光时间和适当的光灵敏度将结合一个独特的多光谱偏振仪（MCSP），补充HSI通过快速测量下行和侧流光场在成像时。光在地球上的许多生物和非生物系统中起着关键作用。动物和植物的光感系统使用光的不同方面来实现许多功能。这种新型的仪器将提供一种革命性的能力，可以同时获取详细的图像和光场数据，适用于许多科学工作。在这里，我们将测试重点放在动态行为生物（例如头足类动物和海洋鱼类）在变化的光场下的视觉交流和伪装过程中，但仪器同样适用于研究静态水生场景（即，珊瑚、海草）或各种动物（鸟类、昆虫、两栖动物、爬行动物等）在高湿度的陆地环境中，如热带雨林。 所提议的工具的效用是毫无疑问的。它将彻底改变视觉生态学和行为学的学科。这项技术限制了我们今天所能做的，这些申请人认为他们已经设计了一种高光谱视频成像仪和多通道偏振仪，结合了两者的优点，为研究人员提供了前所未有的关于视觉场景的光信息。PI正在推动所有正确的界限，这样的工具将具有广泛的适用性和吸引力。

The PI's request funding to develop an innovative light-field sensing instrument package that will enable dynamic characterization of the spatial, spectral, temporal, and polarization aspects of light in aquatic and other moist environments. This instrumentation will be small, portable and waterproof so that it can be readily deployed (e.g. by a SCUBA diver) in the exact natural habitats and time frames in which animals are interacting and light is changing. A new state-of-the-art Hyper-Spectral Imager (HSI) with rapid image exposure times and appropriate light sensitivity will be combined with a unique Multi- Channel-Spectro-Polarimeter (MCSP) that complements the HSI by rapidly measuring the downwelling and sidewelling light fields at the time of imaging. Light plays a key role in many biotic and abiotic systems on earth. Animal and plant light-sensing systems use different aspects of light for numerous functions. This novel instrumentation set will provide a revolutionary capability of simultaneously acquiring detailed imagery and light-field data adaptable to many scientific endeavors. Here we focus our testing on dynamically behaving organisms (e.g. cephalopods and marine fishes) during visual communication and camouflage under changing light fields, but the instrumentation will be equally functional for studying static aquatic scenes (i.e., corals, seagrass) or a wide range of animals (birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, etc.) in high-humidity terrestrial environments such as rain forests.Broader Impacts: The utility of the instrument proposed is without question. It would revolutionize the discipline of visual ecology and behavior. The technology limits what we can do today and these applicants believe they have designed a hyperspectral video imager and multichannel polarimeter that combines the best of both to give the investigator an unprecedented array of light information about visual scenes. The PI's are pushing all the right boundaries and that such an instrument will have broad applicability and appeal.