Project InSPECTOR succesfully finished
Over a period of three years, the InSPECtor project, funded by the EIT RawMaterials, developed an integrated spectroscopic sensor system for laser-induced fluorescence and hyperspectral imaging. The integrated sensor system is also beneficial to other partners in the EIT RawMaterials community, especially those involved in the exploration and evaluation of raw material resources. With the help of the new spectral sensors, a more efficient mineral mapping with a high spatial resolution of the drill cores is possible. The European raw materials sector also needs the ability to efficiently identify rare earths in order to reduce import dependencies of these critical raw materials. The results of the project contribute to the innovative capacity of the European raw materials sector, as the developed sensor system can also be integrated into many future solutions and projects: e.g. a possible combination of emission and absorption spectroscopy with other sensor systems. High potential is seen in combination with other sensors for spectroscopy, e.g. for time-gated raman or x-ray fluorescence or with sensors that allow looking below the drill core surface such as tomography. Further developments can may allow UAV-based exploration with the integrated spectral sensor system and can then complement multi-sensor solutions for UAV. The time- and cost-efficient technology can support developments in online process control, such as exploitation monitoring or material sorting during material processing and recycling (quality control, process correction). The new analysis options have indirect benefits for further geoscientific fields (structural geology as supplementary info for exploration, genesis and differentiation of lithologic/geologic units, provenance analyses, REE as tracer/fingerprinting in material cycles).
