Compact, Attritable, Midwave Hyperspectral Imager (CAM-HSI)

Spectral Sciences proposes to meet the need for ISR sensors for use in attritable vehicles with an innovative, compact, midwave infrared hyperspectral imager.  Operational hyperspectral imagers (HSI) operating in the visible-to-SWIR and longwave infrared spectral regions have demonstrated ability for material classification and target identification.  Mid-wave HSI sensors offer both day/night operability and strong sensitivity to gaseous species that are indicative of vehicle traffic and industrial activity.  They require, however extremely high spectral resolution and high throughput to see through the atmosphere, and in most cases require cooled optics, resulting in previous designs that are large and expensive.  SSI proposes an innovative design with minimal cooling requirements, high resolution, low Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) that can achieve better than 1 microFlick NESR across 500 bands covering 3-5 microns.  The design concept calls for snap-together machined optical components and minimum alignment, which should result in relatively low costs when procured in volumes of tens-to-hundreds.  In Phase I we will develop a detailed design for a demonstrator optical system to be fabricated assembled and tested in Phase II.  Phase III development will lead to a fully functional low-SWAP-C system complete with on-board data processing suitable for flight on an autonomous vehicle.