Novel Photonic Infrared Scene Generator

This proposal addresses an unconventional photonic approach to the next generation IR scene generator. The revolutionary IR scene generator design intrinsically has advantages in speed, compactness, light intensity, temperature range, spatial resolution,background noise, reliability, and cost as compared with the competitive approaches. The device design overcomes all the major shortcomings of the current devices. The proposed miniaturized and liquid cooled IR projector design is compatible with a 5-axismotion simulator and cold background application. The program leverages recent progress on optical switching and materials technology. In Phase I, we will perform detailed concept design and fabricate a prototype high dynamic range advanced IR projectorsystem to demonstrate the feasibility. It is anticipated that the proposed high performance IR scene generator will have commercial application for virtual prototyping of IR imaging sensors for communications and imaging systems development.