Loral Fairchild Corporation

James C McGlone

Ralph H Wight

The present invention is directed to a system and method for reducing image smear in an image which has been electronically collected by a TDI detector. In particular, the present invention is directed to an electronic imager having a charge accumulation device, such as a TDI detector. The charge accumulation device stores a row of electrical charges representing a sensed image. The charges are blurred due to motion of the electronic imager. The imager also includes a shift register for generating a blurred video line by concatenating the blurred charges. The blurred video line includes a series of pixel values proportional to the blurred charges. The imager also includes an image unsteadiness compensation for correcting the blurred video line. The image unsteadiness compensator generally operates as follows. First, the image unsteadiness compensator receives motion information from sensors, wherein the motion information describes the motion of the electronic imager. Then, the image unsteadiness compensator computes image wander of the blurred charges by using the motion information. Next, the image unsteadiness compensator generates a corrected video line from the blurred video line by using the image wander computation.

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

James C McGlone