SBIR Phase II: Low cost shortwave infrared (SWIR) spectral imaging microscope camera based on Compressive Sensing

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to open price-sensitive research, medical imaging and surveillance communities to the benefits of the shortwave infrared (SWIR) waveband without the complexity or expense of traditional hyperspectral systems. The multispectral SWIR imager developed in this project supports medical microscope and small animal imaging of infrared fluorescence for cancer detection, localization and excision. SWIR fluorophores produce no autofluorescence background while simultaneously enhancing tissue penetration depth and efficiency by factors of 10 or more. InView?s imaging platform can build large markets by the development of specialized image processing and analytical methods for specific applications in pharmaceutical manufacturing, food safety, solar panel and semiconductor inspection, machine vision, and navigation. InView?s camera platform embodies the revolutionary new sampling theory of compressive sensing, a field whose applications in information processing have grown exponentially. The innovative architecture and the state-of-the-art software already embedded in the camera and user interface can enhance and possibly transform lab and clinical modalities in dynamic multi-fluorescence imaging, in vivo functional imaging, tissue viability and pathology studies, and advanced imaging modalities such as optical coherence tomography. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 2 project will result in an operational low-cost, multi-color shortwave infrared (SWIR) camera that can be directly mounted on microscopes for supporting compelling micro-imaging applications in scientific, industrial and biomedical imaging. The electro-optical, opto-mechanical, and processing software architecture of the camera is based on Compressive Sensing, a new sampling technique that reduces data collection requirements for high resolution imaging to well below Nyquist limits. This design does not use expensive sensor arrays or complicated spectrometers. Instead, high-resolution pictures are computationally constructed from single-detector measurements. The ?single-pixel camera? architecture was commercialized by InView as a monochromatic SWIR imager. In Phase 1, InView successfully demonstrated that only simple modifications to its monochromatic camera design can produce full color imaging. The objective of Phase 2 is to modify only the components that are necessary to transform the existing monochromatic camera into a multi-color imager with the overall design goal of maintaining the existing camera size, weight and cost so that InView can offer low-cost multispectral SWIR imaging to the price sensitive microscopy community.