Small pixel LWIR active sensor

The Army’s semi and fully autonomous Next Generation Combat Vehicles must traverse poorly delineated landscapes whose views are obscured by smoke, dust, and fog, without GPS, and while under attack. LWIR global shutter flash LIDAR is a robust high resolution 3D active pixel vision sensor which is needed to overcome these challenges. The goal of the proposed program is to identify a feasible high resolution, 640x480 LWIR global shutter LIDAR focal plane array (FPA) architecture. The FPA consists of a LWIR infrared detector array and a silicon CMOS ROIC. ASC plans to measure key active pixel performance using an affordable test chip strategy in the subsequent Phase II program.