A Glossary for the key terminology used in m4mining

EO: Earth Observation

UAV: Unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly referred to as “drone”

TRL: Technology readiness level, a common term to represent the maturity of technical developments

Hyperspectral imaging: technique separating incoming light into narrow, consecutive wavelength ranges. Due to the overlapping nature of the bands, narrow absorption features can be resolved, allowing specific materials to be mapped in the imaged pixels.

HSI: Hyperspectral Imaging

MSI: Multispectral Imaging

3D: Three dimensional

Lidar: light detection and ranging

RGB: Red, Green, Blue, often referred to as true color images

Multispectral: imaging method sampling the incoming light signal in a small number of specific wavelength ranges (so called “bands”), typically between 3-15, within the electromagnetic spectrum.

UAV payload: The weight a drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can carry, usually counted outside of the weight of the drone itself

EnMap: The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) is a German hyperspectral satellite mission that monitors and characterizes Earth’s environment on a global scale, with pixel size 30 m

Sentinel-2: a multispectral earth observation mission from the European Union’s Copernicus Programme, which systematically acquires optical imagery at high spatial resolution over land and coastal waters (pixel size 10 m to 60 m, depending on the band).

PRISMA: Hyperspectral Precursor of the Application Mission, is an Italian hyperspectral, Earth observation satellite, with a pixel size of 30 m.

VNIR: Visible to near infra-red

SWIR: Shortwave infra-red

Panchromatic: Sensitive to light in all colors in the visible spectrum, resulting in a greyscale image.

Inertial Navigation System (INS): a navigation device that uses motion sensors, rotation sensors and a computational unit to continuously calculate the orientation, position and velocity of a moving object (e.g., a drone) without the need for external references.

Edge computing: Refers to processing, analysis, and storing data closer to where it is generated to enable rapid, near real-time analysis and response.

NLIVE: Web-based system for 3D visualization of georeferenced data

LIME: Software for 3D visualization, interpretion and presentation

V3Geo: cloud-based database of virtual 3D models in geoscience

MIAB: Minerals industry advisory board

Photogrammetry: science of making measurements from photographs. Also known as structure from motion, SfM, a method for creating 3D models from sets of overlapping images.

PDK: Prediktera AS

NEO: Norsk Elektro Optikk AS

HySpex: Hyperspectral cameras by NEO

UQ: The University of Queensland, Australia

NORCE: Norwegian Research Centre

ReSe: ReSe Applications

LTU: Luleå University of Technology

UoP: University of Patras

GFZ: German Research Center for Geosciences GFZ, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam

MOA: Geological Survey Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Republic of Cyprus