CHARGE-COUPLED DEVICE SENSORS FOR ELECTRONIC STILL PHOTOGRAPHY

LONG-TERM NASA NEEDS FOR MODELING ASTRONAUTS DURING EVA AND SPACE CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES REQUIRES THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTEGRATED SIMULATION CAPABILITY. SINCE THE ASTRONAUTE MUST WEAR RESTRICTIVE CLOTHING, THEY MUST BE MODELED IN A WAY WHICH REFLECTS THEIR LOSS OF NORMAL RANGE PERFORMANCE. THE INTEGRATED SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT PROVIDES A MEANS FOR MODIFYING THE TASK STRUCTURE AND WORK SPACE ENVIRONMENT SO AS TO REDUCE THE WORK LOAD IN A MANNER CONSISTANT WITH THE INDIVIDUALS PHYSICAL CAPABILITIES. THE BASIC HUMAN-MACHINE DYNAMICS PREDICTION CAPABILITY MUST BE ABLE TO ANALYZE COMPLEX RIGID AND FLEXIBLE MACHINES AS WELL AS DEALING WITH HUMAN MODELS RANGING FROM SIMPLE STICK STRUCTURES THROUGH COMPLETE MYOCYBERNETIC MUSCULOSKELETAL MODELS. A TWO LEVEL APPROACH IS PROPOSED FOR ADDRESSING FUNCTIONAL UNIT-TO-TASKS AND HIGH LEVEL ANATOMICAL-TO-FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE ASSESSEMENTS. A NEED HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED FOR AN ELECTRONIC STILL CAMERA FOR SPACE FLIGHT APPLICATIONS THAT INCORPORATES A SUITABLE SOLID-STATE ELECTRONIC IMAGING DETECTOR. IN THIS PROJECT, THE KEY PERFORMANCE SPECIFICATIONS CONCERNING THE DETECTOR--INCLUDING OPTICAL SENSITIVITY, SPATIAL RESOLUTION, READOUT RATE, DYNAMIC RANGE, DARK CURRENT, AND SPATIAL CROSSTALK-- WILL BE IDENTIFIED. A NUMBER OF EXPERIMENTS AND TESTS WILL BE PERFORMED TO DETERMINE THE OPTIMAL COMBINATION OF CHARGE-COUPLED-DEVICE (CCD) AND CCD READOUT AND SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES TO PRODUCE A DETECTOR SUITED FOR ELECTRONIC STILL PHOTOGRAPHY APPLICATIONS. THESE INCLUDE EVALUATION OFCCD TRANSPORT REGISTER ARCHITECTURES AND APPROACHES TO INCREASE SENSITIVITY TO BLUE/VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS; TESTING NOISE AND NOISE SPECTRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VARIOUS OUTPUT AMPLIFIER DESIGN APPROACHES; EVALUATIONS OF HIGH-SPEED CCD DOUBLE-CORRELATED SIGNAL PROCESSING CIRCUITS; AND EVALUATIONOF THE FEASIBILITY OF EMPLOYING MULTIPLE CCD OUTPUT PORTS. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: APPLICATIONS INCLUDE SPACE-BORNE AND GROUND-BASED STILL ELECTRONIC PHOTOGRAPHY, SURVEILLANCE, OPTICAL MICROSCOPY, LOW LIGHT LEVEL UNDERWATERIMAGING.