Increased Field Of Regard Techniques For Staring IR Focal Plane Arrays

A large field of regard (FOR) infrared (IR) focal plane array (FPA) is often desirable for applications such as missile guidance, spacebased surveillance, security surveillance, thermal imaging, remote sensing, and free-space optical communication receivers. Large FOR staring IR FPA's are presently very expensive and difficult to manufacture. A possible lower cost, easy-to-fabricate alternative is to scan the large FOR over a small IR detector array. Scanning approaches using binary optics with a microshifting mechanism, line scanners, and gimbaled wedge scanners hae limitations in image quality and speed. We propose to provide a detailed analysis through a preliminary design and performance prediction of three different large search FOR IR FPA scanning concepts. Each concept has the potential to provide substantial performance improvements over previous techniques. The analyses will include parametric design studies of each scanning concept to determine a near-optimum design and the operating constraints for each concept. We will compare the designs for each concept to determine the best design for a given application. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS: The large search FOR IR FPA scanning concepts we propose to evaluate have the potential to provide high quality images at high speed, small size, low power, and low cost. This will benefit applications such as missile guidance, space-based surveillance, security surveillance, thermal imaging, remote sensing, and free-space optical communication receivers.