Rapid Assembly and Alignment of Electro-Optical Sensor Payloads

ABSTRACT: Electro-optic (E-O) sensor payloads play a critical role in the gathering of information for variety of uses for both civilian and national security interests. Systems that provide this function can be grouped in terms of their capability which determines to a great degree their application. There is increasing motivation for reducing the assembly, integration, and test (AI/T) of optical systems. The development of E-O sensor payloads has been historically resource intensive for a variety of reasons. One powerful driving force behind the expense is that the manufacturing technology required to achieve the performance requirements leaves little room for alignment tolerances. One potential method of addressing this sensitivity to alignment tolerances is to design and build optical systems using computational imaging principles; converting from a simple imaging system into a signal processing system. BENEFIT: Reduction in cost and increase in performance for commercial optical systems (e.g. digital camera manufactures, digital video camera manufacturers, remote sensing system vendors). Reduction in cost and increase in performance for government/military systems (e.g. E-O payloads for space, UAV, or manned aircraft platforms).