Detection of single graves by airborne hyperspectral imaging

• In a blind study, we used hyperspectral data to locate single graves.
• The methodology relies on spectral as well as spatial analysis.
• We determined that a minimum of 3 vegetation and 1 clay indicies are required for localization of the grave site.
• We located all known graves with 100% accuracy.

Airborne hyperspectral imaging (HSI) was assessed as a potential tool to locate single grave sites. While airborne HSI has shown to be useful to locate mass graves, it is expected the location of single graves would be an order of magnitude more difficult due to the smaller size and reduced mass of the targets. Two clearings were evaluated (through a blind test) as potential sites for containing at least one set of buried remains. At no time prior to submitting the locations of the potential burial sites from the HSI were the actual locations of the sites released or shared with anyone from the analysis team.The two HSI sensors onboard the aircraft span the range of 408–2524 nm. A range of indicators that exploit the narrow spectral and spatial resolutions of the two complimentary HSI sensors onboard the aircraft were calculated. Based on the co-occurrence of anomalous pixels within the expected range of the indicators three potential areas conforming to our underlying assumptions of the expected spectral responses (and spatial area) were determined. After submission of the predicted burial locations it was revealed that two of the targets were located within GPS error (10 m) of the true burial locations. Furthermore, due to the history of the TPOF site for burial work, investigation of the third target is being considered in the near future. The results clearly demonstrate promise for hyperspectral imaging to aid in the detection of buried remains, however further work is required before these results can justifiably be used in routine scenarios.