Raytheon Company

George F Baker

Lacy G Cook

Chungte W Chen

C Thomas Hastings, Jr

John Steven Anderson

A compact, high numerical aperture, high resolution, ultra-wide field of view concentric scanning optical sensor. In a most general embodiment, the inventive optical arrangement ( ) includes an at least semi-spherical lens ( ) having a base; a reflective surface ( ) centered at a center of said base and parallel thereto; and an array ( ) of detectors dispose to receive electromagnetic energy received through said lens and reflected by said surface. In the illustrative embodiment, the semi-spherical lens is a ball lens ( ). The reflective surface is aspheric and designed to effect aberration correction. A mechanism ( ) is included for rotating the ball lens ( ) causing the system to scan. A dome lens ( ) is disposed over the ball lens and concentric therewith. Electromagnetic energy is received through the dome and ball lenses and reflected by the mirror to the detector array. A field lens assembly ( ) is disposed between the detectors and the mirror. The field lens assembly allows for the use of flat piece-wise sensor chip assemblies (SCAs). The use of flat SCAs allows the system to have the compact advantages of a concentric system without the need of expensive curved focal surface array.

Ultra-wide field of view concentric scanning sensor system with a piece-wise focal plane array

An imaging sensor has multiple fields of view of the same scene that may be selected by the user for viewing through mechanical movements. The imaging and selection are accomplished entirely with reflective optical components (mirrors) and without the use of any refractive optical components (lenses). A movable field-shifting mirror selects between a direct view and a modified-of-view image of the scene. The modified-view image is accomplished using a multi-mirror afocal telescope. Additional field-shifting mirrors may be used to select other fields of view and reference sources, as desired, or between various detectors.

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Hesperia, CA, United States of America

George F Baker