Low-cost Laboratory Scanner Unit: Design and Testing for Hyperspectral Imaging System

Hyperspectral imaging is a technology that is increasingly used in various application areas such as product quality control, sorting, recycling, or vegetation studies, etc. Compared to information from conventional images (black and white or color), hyperspectral imaging provides important information on the chemical, physical or biological structure of products. For these objects to be scanned and analyzed in laboratory conditions or before making an industrial application they need to be scanned on a hyperspectral imaging system. These systems usually come at a very high price; an additional cost added to the hyperspectral camera itself. The objective of this paper is to design and implement a low-cost system with the same functionalities of an original one. Because the functionalities of a similar system resemble the one of a 3D printer and the chassis gives us the liberty to create supports for cameras, illumination, controllers, in this paper an old, decommissioned 3D printer (Anet A8 PLUS) was repurposed to create a hyperspectral imaging system.