Wide FOV Foveal Night Vision System

In this SBIR proposal, Kent Optronics, Inc. (KOI) proposes to develop a novel foveal night vision system (F-NVS) with wide field-of-view (FOV) for military activities in night and/or low-light-level environments. The critical element is the wide FOV objective subsystem with a passive wavefront compensator for achromatic and polarization insensitive wavefront compensation. The passive wavefront compensator is made special solid-state polymer material in multilayered film format with unique spatial patterns. The resulted F-NVS is compact, lightweight and low cost. Our preliminary design results via model simulation have proven that the F-NVS possesses the foveated imaging feature with the wide FOV to 90o (±45o) and the high resolution >1.6 cycles/mrad. In Phase I, the objective and eyepiece subsystems will be designed. The concept of the foveal NVS will be demonstrated from a demo device through more detailed simulation on the system and the design of the passive wavefront compensator that is included in the system. The Phase I Option will start to develop such a wavefront compensator for the breadboard level demonstration of the F-NVS. Phase II and Phase III will develop and test the prototype of the wide FOV foveal NVS, followed by the product commercialization.