Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael Chrisp

Robert E Martinez

Mark Silver

Bryan M Reid

Adam Shabshelowitz

Alan Decew

An imaging system includes a metering structure and a plurality of foldable members disposed around a periphery of the metering structure. Each foldable member in the plurality of foldable members includes an arm comprising a strain deployable composite and a reflector disposed on the arm. The arm in a respective foldable member in the plurality of foldable members is configured to hold the respective foldable member toward the metering structure in a first state and to hold the respective foldable member away from the metering structure in a second state such that the reflector of the respective foldable member forms part of a sparse aperture in the second state.

Methods and apparatus for deployable sparse-aperture telescopes

A method of and program for optimizing NURBS optical surfaces for an imaging system. Preferably, the number and location of field point sources to be used in ray tracing of a NURBS modeled imaging system surfaces are determined by automatically iteratively increasing the number of field point sources during ray tracing until the spot size from adjacent field points sources on the image plane of the imaging system varies by less than a predetermined value. The number of rays for each field point source to be used in ray tracing of the NURBS modeled imaging system surfaces is preferably determined by automatically iteratively increasing the number of rays for each field point source during ray tracing until a predetermined number of rays intersect each NURBS rectangular grid sub-area. In ray tracing the modeled NURBS surfaces, the determined number and location of field point sources and the determined number of rays from each field point source are used and the grid control points of each NURBS surface are preferably iteratively adjusted, keeping symmetry or allowing freeform shapes, by means of an optimization algorithm based on ray tracing until spot sizes on the image plane meet a set requirement and/or until improvement in spot size is below a predetermined value.

Method of and system for optimizing NURBS surfaces for an imaging system

An imaging spectrometer, covering the visible through infrared wavelengths, which disperses the light by a plane diffraction grating behind a wedged optical element. This design uses an achromatic doublet lens with a reflective coating on its convex back surface to produce the spectra on a flat detector. Spatial keystone distortion and spectral smile are controlled to less than one tenth of a pixel over the full wavelength range, facilitating the use of simple retrieval algorithms.

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Burlington, MA, United States of America

Michael Chrisp