Integrated Approach for Archaeological Prospection Exploiting Airborne Hyperspectral Remote Sensing

Earth observation activities, used to detect buried archaeological remains and survey the archaeological landscape, can exploit the integration of multi-platform (i.e. satellite, airborne and in situ), multi-sensor (i.e. active and passive, multi - and hyperspectral) and frequency data in order to carry out calibration and validation activities, merge different data, compare and append the results of each datum and export the characteristic methods of each datum, technique and application for use with other data, techniques and applications. The aim of this paper is to describe this integrated approach through research activities. This approach was adopted not only to improve the performance of calibration and validation activities, but also to enhance the capability of airborne hyperspectral data in detecting buried archaeological remains and surveying the archaeological landscape. Thus, this integrated approach encouraged the collaboration of researchers in different fields. This improvement was evaluated by ranking the capability of each band of each collected sensor, the capability of each merged image and the capability of each synthetic image obtained to export the characteristic methods of each datum, technique and application to other data, techniques and applications. The results of this evaluation were that the ability (to detect buried archaeological structures and survey the archaeological landscape) of synthetic images (obtained to export the characteristic methods of each datum, technique and application to other data, techniques and applications) is greater than the ability of each single band of each collected sensor and the ability of each merged image.