Hi

.My college professor needs a uav to be developed For mapping.
The idea is to put a hyperspectral camera on it to understand forest type and study the water springs in the area.
Has anyone worked with hyperspectral cams b4?
I have many questions.
Where do i get such a cam.
How much do they cost. 20k 40k??
Can i have it transmit data instantly?
What software to use to stitch the data .
Which autopilot is the most reliable for autonomous flight.

Share whatever you know . Ill add more questionsas they come up
I am planning a fixed wing design similar to a skyhunter with landing gears.
Am leaning towards a i.c engine for high endurance.
Am avoiding multirotors coz of high expense and limited flight time

A few years ago I did some research on using hyperspectral cameras to detect ores/ minerals for mining. Overall it is an expensive and difficult project. If you're interested, I can send you some of the datasheets/ documents I have but they're too big to attach here.

What specific kind of system you need depends on the application - but the systems we looked at weighed around 5 kg at the lowest end, which is a pretty challenging payload. On top of that, the quote we got was was around 90000 US$ for the whole system. Obviously, you need a very reliable autopilot for a payload that expensive. One of the companies we looked at had an integrated UAV system that used a flight controller from Lockheed Martin. Postprocessing hyperspectral data is not simple either, though I think most camera systems include software to do so.

You might want to look into using a normal consumer grade digital camera, and postprocessing with something like QGIS. Good luck!

You are venturing into Strategic Defence tech here. Might i add, that you use a set of 3 cameras equipped with at least 3 filters for appropriate bandwidth pass. Then you combine these images to make a false colour image , then you can do the analysis. You must also make calibration flights over known territory . A camera with high ISO and sensitivity over a wide gamut of colours would be appropriate. Check out "Sony Cyber-shot RX100 V1", or similar ones. you may check out the camera's specifics on https://www.dxomark.com/sony-rx100-v-sensor-review-high-end-compact-with-impressive-speed/.  I dont know much , but this much only. Hope it helps you.