Raytheon Company

Other

Hughes Electronics Corporation

Darin Scot Williams

Kent P Pflibsen

Edward N Kitchen

Richard J Wright

Marc Berte

Thomas M Crawford

Robert William Byren

Adam M Kennedy

Juejun Hu

Martin Spence Denham

Anuradha Murthy Agarwal

Justin Gordon Adams Wehner

David Brooke Hatfield

Frank B Jaworski

Nicholas Bert Saccketti

Lawrence A Westhoven, Jr

Walter Wrigglesworth

Brian Keith McComas

Alexandra L Blake

R Glenn Brosch

Joanna Margaret Williams

John J Clark

Jodean D Wendt

A ball gimbal electro-optic system comprises a ball gimbal mounted on a platform. The gimbal includes a socket mounted on the platform and an inner ball captured within the socket and free to rotate about combinations of three orthogonal axes to point a pointing axis. A directional electro-optic element is mounted within the inner ball to transmit or receive an optical beam along the pointing axis. A spherical planar motor comprises a plurality of two-dimensional drive elements configured to apply non-contacting electro-magnetic forces in planes tangential to the inner ball at at least two control points on different diameters of the inner ball in commanded two-dimensional directions within the tangential planes to rotate the inner ball within the socket to point the pointing axis. In different embodiments, the spherical planar motor may be configured as a spherical planar DC motor or a spherical planar induction motor. Other systems such as power, ball position readout and data I/O may also be configured as 'non-contacting' systems to maintain the inertial stabilization of the inner ball.

Non-contacting electro-magnetic spherical planar motor providing 3-axis control of a ball joint gimbal mounted electro-optic system

A ball joint gimbal imaging system includes on-gimbal optics that reimage a front optical aperture to a smaller back optical aperture that moves with the rotation of the inner ball. Relay optics are configured to relay the back optical aperture to an electro-optic component mounted on the platform, off-gimbal. Relay optics includes a first two-axis steering element (on or off-gimbal) that is positioned and sized to cover the range of motion of the beam from the back optical aperture across the range of gimbal motion. The first two-axis steering element is controlled to steer the optical beam passing through the back optical aperture into a second off-gimbal two-axis steering element that is controlled to tilt the optical beam to align light along the central axis of the electro-optic element with the central axis of the front optical aperture on the inner ball, which is coincident with the gimbal pointing axis.

Ball joint gimbal imaging system with an off-gimbal directional electro-optic component

A digital bolometer architecture provides dynamic control of a simultaneous integration time for all pixels, with a temporal response that is more uniform than conventional bolometers and lacks frame cross-talk from decay tails, and which supports sub-frame measurement for on readout computational imaging. This is accomplished by replacing resistive pixel temperature sensing with continuous optical interferometric measurement and subsequent signal accumulation. Balanced reference sensors allow rejection of temperature differences across the thermal sink. The thermal time constant of the pixels is substantially reduced and the lost SNR is recovered by integration of the measured signals, using a programmable integration time.

Digital imaging bolometer and method of measuring photon radiation in a pixelated image

The accumulation of registered sub-frame residuals in an address-mapped repartitioned digital pixel matches the intensity resolution (dynamic range) to the spatial resolution of the image. The digital accumulation of pixel quantization events (QEs) is extended to include sub-frame residuals. After all QEs are digitally accumulated, then removed from the analog accumulator, an analog residual value remains. Residual capture logic is configured to trigger residual digitization logic at least twice per frame interval for selected pixels to capture, digitize and then clear the residual value on the storage device. Memory update logic is configured to accumulate the quantization event digital values and residual digital values into existing digital values at the address-mapped memory locations in digital memory. Resolution enhancement is enabled by an address mapping that maps a one-pixel spacing on the detector to two or more pixel spacing in the digital memory.

Address mapped repartitioned digital pixel with sub-frame residual accumulation

Embodiments of a system for characterization of an imaging sensor using a moving modulated target with unmodulated position references is generally described herein. A target pattern comprises through-holes in a slide and resolved patches on the slide. The slide and patch have different emission intensities in the sensor' detection band. A modulation is applied to only the emission intensities of the through-holes. The target pattern is moved across the field-of view (FOV) of the imaging sensor to present the target pattern across different frames at different positions. Frames of images of the moving target pattern as seen in the FOV of the imaging sensor are captured to generate modulated image data outputs. The unmodulated position references provided by the resolved patches are measured and used to align the modulated image data outputs, which are processed to generate data products representative of a response of the imaging sensor.

System and moving modulated target with unmodulated position references for characterization of imaging sensors

By adding stabilization and super-sampling to a digital pixel readout integrated circuit (ROIC), line of sight motion, that is usually costly and difficult to control, instead becomes an ally, doubling the effective FPA resolution in some systems. The base repartitioned digital pixel architecture supplements analog signal accumulation with off-pixel digital accumulation, greatly increasing dynamic range. Adding address mapping and increasing the ratio of memory locations to pixels, enables stabilization and resolution enhancement. Additional stabilization at sub-frame intervals limits the effect of latency and simplifies complex address mapping. Pixels gains are compensated in-ROIC, without requiring multipliers. A unique partitioning of functions between the ROIC and subsequent logic allows pixel biases and non-isomorphic sampling effects to be compensated off-ROIC, reducing overall system complexity and power.

Address mapped repartitioned digital pixel

Embodiments of a multi-plenoptic system with image stacking and method for wide field-of-regard (FOR) high-resolution image are generally described herein. The multi-plenoptic system may include a subfield separator to decompose an image within a wide field of view into a plurality of multi-pixel subfields. The subfield separator may rotate a chief ray within each multi-pixel subfield by a differing amount relative to a rotation of other rays of the subfield. The multi-plenoptic system may also include a subfield modulator to selectively block or pass light from at least a portion of one or more of the subfields and a subfield image formation element to relay the portions of the subfields that are passed by the subfield modulator onto substantially overlapping areas of a common image plane. A single focal-plane array (FPA) may be aligned with the common image plane to provide for high-resolution imaging over a wide FOR.

Multi-plenoptic system with image stacking and method for wide field-of-regard high-resolution imaging

In certain embodiments, a system for detecting an agent includes a resonator device configured to receive an agent. The resonator device is also configured to transmit light received from a light source, the transmitted light having an altered peak wavelength due to the presence of the received agent. The system further includes a filter device configured to filter the transmitted light having the altered peak wavelength such that the transmitted light having the altered peak wavelength does not reach one or more detectors of a detector array configured to receive transmitted light not filtered by the filter device. The system further includes a processing system operable to determine that the one or more detectors of the detector array are not generating a signal, the absence of the signal being generated by the one or more detectors of the detector array indicating the presence of the agent.

Optical device for detection of an agent

Blur-calibration of an imaging sensor includes moving a known target pattern across the field-of view (FOV) of the imaging sensor to present the target pattern across different frames at different pixel phases. The known target pattern comprises a plurality of point-like objects with fixed relative positions in which at least one point-like object has a different focus position. Frames of images of the moving target pattern as seen in the FOV of the imaging sensor are captured to sample point-like objects at different focus positions and generate a multi-focal image data output, which may be subsequently processed to generate data products at different focus positions from a high-resolution composite image generated from the captured frames.

Blur-calibration system for electro-optical sensors and method using a moving multi-focal multi-target constellation

The value of a median or other rank of interest in a dataset is efficiently determined. Each active bit of the dataset is serially processed to compute one bit of the output value from each bit of the input dataset. If any sample in the dataset has an active bit that differs from the determined output value for that bit, then that sample can be marked as no longer in consideration. After an active bit has been processed, the data for that bit may be discarded or subsequently ignored. These techniques allow the rank value to be efficiently determined using pipelined logic in a configurable gate array (CGA) or the like. Further implementations may be enhanced to compute clipped means, to identify 'next highest' or 'next lowest' values, to reduce quantization errors through less-significant bit interpolation, to simultaneously process multiple values in a common pipeline, or for any other purpose.

Methods and systems for determining an enhanced rank order value of a data set

Printing of color imagery onto a rewritable color surface is accomplished by providing an applicator with an alignment subsystem capable of sensing an alignment marker of one or more colors dots from multiple local color dot patterns as the applicator scans the surface to align the applicator's print head to the local color dot patterns. The alignment subsystem uses the sensed alignment markers to determine an absolute position on the rewritable color surface at a resolution of the individual color dots in the local color dot pattern and to align the state values for the corresponding portion of the color image to the individual color dots in the local color dot patterns on said surface.

Application of color imagery to a rewritable color surface

Embodiments of a system and method for blur-calibration of an imaging sensor using a moving constellation are generally described herein. In some embodiments, blur-calibration of an imaging sensor includes moving a known target pattern across the field-of view (FOV) of the imaging sensor to present the target pattern across different frames at different pixel phases. Frames of images of the moving target pattern as seen in the FOV of the imaging sensor are captured to generate image data output. The image data output may be subsequently processed to generate data products representative of a shape of a point-spread function (PSF) from a high-resolution composite image generated from the captured frames. A chopper modulation may be applied to the moving target sequence and separate chopper-open and chopper-closed composite images are created. The PSF may be determined based on the difference between the chopper-open and chopper-closed composite images. The PSF may specify the shape of blur at one or more locations in the FOV.

Blur-calibration system for electro-optical sensors and method using a moving multi-target constellation

In an imaging system, intentional scene motion across the image detector from frame-to-frame, and more particularly the rate of intentional scene motion is 'decoupled' from smearing of the scene in the detected image by applying the intentional scene motion in the interval between frames to produce the intentional scene motion in a discrete step across the image detector from frame-to-frame. The intentional scene motion may be quantized or provided as a sub-pixel dither signal to control the sub-pixel phase frame-to-frame. In register/sum applications, this substantially eliminates misregistration of the images and may allow for super-sampling of the images onto a higher resolution grid. The ability to decouple intentional scene motion from smearing and to control the sub-pixel phase defines a new trade space that relaxes the limitations on intentional scene motion across the image detector.

Intra-frame optical-stabilization with intentional inter-frame scene motion

Some embodiments pertain to an optical zoom system. The optical zoom system includes a first inward-facing surface that is at least partly reflective and a second inward-facing surface that is at least partly reflective. The optical zoom system further includes a first aperture that includes a plurality of sub-apertures which are positioned around at least a portion of an outer periphery of one of the first and second inward facing surfaces. Each sub-aperture includes an optically powered element. The optical zoom system further includes a second aperture that exists proximate a central region of the optical zoom system. Light is reflected on the first and second inward facing surfaces as the light travels between the first aperture and the second aperture such that the light is optically combined into a single image before exiting the second aperture.

Wide angle thin-profile zoom

A system for imaging a textured surface comprising includes a photoreceptor array having: at least a first photoreceptor and a second photoreceptor, each configured to receive electromagnetic radiation reflected from the textured surface and to generate a signal corresponding thereto; wherein the photoreceptor array is configured to detect an image of the textured surface based on the relative difference between the time of arrival of the signals from the first and second photoreceptors. Methods for imaging a textured surface and fabricating a photoreceptor array structure for imaging a textured surface are also provided.

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Darin Scot Williams