Gigapixel High-Speed Optical Sensor Tracking (GHOST)

ABSTRACT:In response to Department of defense SBIR topic AF151-175, Alphacore Inc. will develop a camera system for multiscale gigapixel photography that will allow synchronized detectors to capture digital images of fragments moving at up to 9000 feet per second to determine fragment size and shape in warhead arena testing. Alphacores approach is to develop a triggerable, high speed CMOS imaging chip that is optimized for this purpose and build a multi-chip camera-system that uses 25 100 of these novel chips. The developed chip enables capturing sharp images with less than 1 s integration time, synchronized with a timing accuracy better than 10 ns over all pixel sensors used to form the full image. The significance of this innovation is that there currently exists a critical need for these types of cameras capable of imaging fast moving fragments in warhead arena testing. The first full camera prototype will have twenty-five 4 megapixel (Mpixel) chips synchronized to form 100-megapixel images. In this proposal, Alphacore describes the innovative imager chip and a camera system that is capable of providing the requested features. BENEFIT:The developed camera system will provide Air Force the needed capability for their weapons testing. In addition, since the proposed novel technologies make it possible to build compact, high-speed, few hundred megapixel to gigapixel cameras, excellent commercial potential can be expected for the developed products. One of the main objectives of the U.S. SBIR program is to encourage small businesses to market the SBIR technology in the private sector which, in turn, helps stimulate the U.S. economy. Alphacores novel, single-unit system that pushes the state-of-the-art in performance will have superior commercial potential as compared to much larger multi-unit systems that other companies may propose under this SBIR topic. In the defense sector, high speed digital cameras have been used in development of various weapon systems, as an example to study how mines dropped from the air will deploy in near shore regions, and to capture ballistic intercepts. past years, the modern high speed digital cameras with 4 megapixel resolution recording at 1500 fps have been replacing the high speed film cameras used on tracking mounts on test ranges that capture ballistic intercepts