THE SURPRISE DEMONSTRATOR: A SUPER-RESOLVED COMPRESSIVE INSTRUMENT IN THE VISIBLE AND MEDIUM INFRARED FOR EARTH OBSERVATION

Earth Observation (EO) applications and products can greatly benefit from increased spatial resolution and revisit time of EO optical payloads. On the other hand, increasing spatial resolution poses several technological challenges, both in terms of detector arrays and data bandwidth. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a super-resolved compressive instrument - the SURPRISE demonstrator - which is being developed to address a super-spectral payload for Earth observation working in the visible and in the medium infrared with enhanced performance in terms of at-ground spatial resolution, innovative on-board data processing and encryption functionalities. To achieve this goal, the SURPRISE demonstrator relies on two main technologies: Spatial Light Modulator technology and Compressive Sensing. Here we present the demonstrator's concept, its overall architecture and the approach used for image reconstruction.