Military Applications of Curved Focal Plane Arrays Developed by the HARDI Program

Abstract

Curved focal plane arrays (FPAs) coupled with ball lenses can reduce spherical aberration, increase the field of view (FOV), and reduce the weight and cost of optical systems. These improvements over flat FPAs promise major upgrades for military systems. The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) has been investigating the potential applications of curved FPAs that are being developed in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Hemispherical Array Detector for Imaging (HARDI) program. Several applications have been identified, but the initial focus has involved cameras mounted on small robots used for mine detection and neutralization. These cameras can be improved by the application of curved FPAs. IDA developed a ray tracing code to analyze improvement in camera resolution and conducted tradeoff studies to obtain optimum conditions for various robot camera applications.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2011
Accession Number
ADA542447

Entities

People

  • Bohdan Balko
  • Isaac Chappell
  • John Franklin
  • Robert Kraig

Organizations

  • Institute for Defense Analyses

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Arrays
  • Cameras
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Digital Cameras
  • Focal Plane Arrays
  • Focal Planes
  • Frequency
  • Geometry
  • Images
  • Military Applications
  • Optical Properties
  • Ray Tracing
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - DoD AI Strategy
  • Autonomy