Non-conventional Imaging Lens With Extended Depth of Focus

The Army is seeking to develop innovative optical detection and imaging systems that allow battlefield imaging through smoke, dust, and fog obscurants for applications of battlefield visualization, remote manipulation in hazardous environments, situational awareness, surveillance and monitoring. In commercial and industrial fields, the applications of such system include: automated inspection and robotic manipulations, airports and traffic control, autonomous vehicle guidance, monitoring and security, 3D object/scene modeling, visual art, movies production, and virtual environments. For realization of these tasks, the imaging system should possess two significant properties: (1) large depth of focus for simultaneously imaging objects locating at different altitudes or various distances, and (2) effectively operates through obscurants. Conventional auto focus technique is too slow and not capable of long depth of focus while small aperture system is not energy efficient and not capable for low light level imaging. New Span Opto-Technology Inc. proposes herein a new extended depth of focus lens with fast F# and large aperture for battlefield imaging application. The proposed Phase I research will evaluate and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed concept. Phase II will optimize the design and fabrication to demonstrate a practical device prototype for military applications as well as for commercial applications.