Multiscale optical system

Abstract

A means of enabling an imaging lens system that overcomes some of the costs and disadvantages of the prior art is disclosed. A lens system in accordance with the present invention reduces or eliminates one or more aberrations of an optical input by separating image collection functionality from image processing functionality. As a result, each function can be performed without compromising the other function. An embodiment of the present invention comprises a collection optic that provides a first optical field, based on light from a scene, to a processing optic that comprises a plurality of lenslets. The processing optic tiles the first optical field into a plurality of second optical fields. Each lenslet receives a different one of the plurality of second optical fields, reduces at least one localized aberration in its received second optical field, and provides the corrected optical field to a different one of plurality of photodetectors whose collective output is used to form a spatially correlated sub-image of that corrected optical field. The sub-images are readily combined into a spatially correlated image of the scene.